LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



®i^{i. iapijrig|i l|n.- 

Shelf. .:/?^..^^^^ 

CNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BOOKS BY MADISON 


CAWEIN 


Moods and Memories 


. $2 GO 


Red Leaves and Roses . 


. 1 25 


Days and Dreams 


. I 25 


Poems of Nature and Love 


. I 50 


G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 


NEW YORK & LONDON 



Poems 



OF 



Nature and Love 



/ 



MADISON CAWEIN 



^ 



'"^SEP 25 1893' 



■/^ 






l\ 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK 

27 West Twenty-third St. 

1893 



LONDON 
24 Bedford St., Strand 



"'tW ■' 



7S /277 

1^9 3 



Copyright, 1893 

BY 

MADISON CAWEIN 



Printed and Bound by 

Ubc Iftnfcftcrbocher ipreas, -Wew Ifforft 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 



Under the present title are included selections 
from two former volumes, Accolon of Gaul, and 
Lyrics and Idyls. Such poems only as appeared 
to the author's judgment worthiest of retention 
have been retained. In the selection of these he 
has endeavored to exercise a critical discrimination 
and, to the best of his ability, to correct or expunge 
the frequent obscurity, superfluity, and exaggerated 
expression of the earlier works. Many of the poems 
have been partially, several entirely, rewritten. 



TO 

JOAQUIN MILLER 



How shall I greet him — him who seems 
To me the worthiest of our singers ? 

As one who hears Sierra streams. 
And, gazing under arching fingers. 

Feels all the eagle feels that screams. 

The savage dreams, what time he lingers ? 

Son of the West, out of the West 

We heard thee si?tg, — who still allurest, — 

A land where God sits manifest, 

A land where man stands freest, surest ; 

A land, the noblest and the best. 
The loveliest and purest. 

Wild hast thou sung, as some strange bird 
On golden cliffs, and winds that glistened. 

And seas and stars and men have heard — 
And one, whose soul cried out and listened. 

He sends his young, unworthy word 

To thee the Master's word hath christened. 



CONTENTS. 













PAGE 


Revery ..... 




I 


Summer 










3 


Gargaphie 










5 


Beneath the Beeches 










8 


The Brush-Sparrow 










lO 


The Old Farm 










13 


The Bridle-path 










17 


A Gray Day 










21 


The Mood o' the Earth 










24 


Among the Acres of the \ 


Vood 








27 


Nooning 










29 


The Log-Bridge 










31 


Among the Knobs . 










33 


Late October 










36 


Fall . 










38 


The Forest Pool 










40 


Haunted 










42 


Ghostly Weather . 










47 


Apocalypse . 










48 


Uncertainty . 










49 


Overseas 










51 


Act in. 










53 


Lost Love 










55 


On a Portrait 










57 


After the Tournament 










. S8 


Oriental Romance . 










60 


Porphyrogenita 










62 


The Castle of Love 










. 64 



viii 




CONTENTS. 








PAGE 


Consecration ...... 67 


Romantic Love 












69 


Pastoral Love 












71 


Andalia 












72 


Noera 














75 


Phyllis 














78 


Carmen 














80 


Seiiorita 














83 


As It Is 














8S 


Thoughts 














86 


Chords 














88 


Impressions 














92 


Fragments 














99 


Ideal Divination 












101 


The Beautiful 












104 


Sleep . 












ig6 


Disenchantment of Death 










108 


The Three Urgandas 










III 


The Legacy of Death 










"5 


The Caverns of Kaf 










121 


The Spirit of the Van 










127 


The Spirit of the Star 










133 


Lyanna 










138 


Masks 












144 


The Succuba 












147 


Blodeuwedd . 












151 


Accolon of Gaul 












156 


Epilogue 














210 



REVERY. 

What ogive gates from gold of Ophir wrought, \ 

What walls of marble^ whiter than a rose. 

What towers of crystal, for the eyes of thought, .'. 

Hast bnilded on far Islands of Repose / I 

A A/ HERE castled peaks and templed cliffs and 

^' vales ; 

Cloud — like convulsive sunsets — shores that \ 

dream, \ 
Myrrh-fragrant, over siren seas v/hose sails 

Gleam white as lilies on a lilied stream, \ 
Long have I dreamed ! In gardens towards the sea, 

Down arcades of some sea-sad colonnade i 

Of wreathen sculpture, long have walked with ' 

thought, I 

To bend, in shadowy attitude, the knee ». 

Before the shrine of Beauty that must fade \ 

And leave no memory of the mind that wrought. '\ 

Who hath beheld thy caverns where, in heaps, : 

The wines of Lethe and Love's-witchery, j 

In sealed amphorae a Sibyl keeps, ! 

World-old, forever guarded secretly ! — \ 



RE VERY. 



No wine of Xeres or of Syracuse ! 

No fine Falernian and no vile Sabine ! — 
The stolen fire of a demigod, 
Whose bubbled purple goddess feet did bruise 
From crusted vats of vintage, where the green 
Flames with wild poppies, on the Samian sod. 

Oh, for the deep enchantment of one draught ! 

The reckless ecstasy of classic earth ! — 
With godlike eyes to laugh as gods have laughed 

In eyes of mortal brown, a breezy mirth 
Of deity delirious with desire ! 

To breathe the dropping roses of the shrines. 
The splashing wine-libation and the blood. 
And all the young priest's dreaming ! To inspire 

My eager soul with beauty, till it shines 
An utt'rance of life's loftier brotherhood I 

So would I slumber in the old-world shades. 

And Poesy should touch me, as the bold 
Wild-bees the virgin lilies of the glades, 

Barbaric with the pulpy-kerneled gold : 
And feel the glory of the golden-age 

Less godly than my purpose, strong to dare 
Death with the pure, immortal lips of love : 
Less lovely than my soul's ideal rage 

To mate itself with Music, and declare 
Itself part-meaning of the stars above. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



SUMMER. 



T^HOU sit'st among the sunny silences 

Of passive hills and woodland majesties, 
Thou utterance of all calm melodies, 
Thou lutanist of Earth's most fecund lute, — 

Where no false note intrudes 
To mar the silent music, — foot by foot 
Playing broad fields ripe, orchards and deep woods, 
In song similitudes 
Of flow^er and seed and fruit. 

II. 

So have I heard thee in some sensuous air 
Bewitch the wide wheat-acres everywhere 
To imitated gold of thy rich hair : 
The peach, by thy red lips' delicious trouble, 

Blown into gradual dyes 
Of crimson ; with glad interludes to double — 
Dark-blue with fervid influence of thine eyes — 

The grapes' rotundities 

Bubble by purple bubble. 

III. 

Deliberate uttered into life intense, 
Out of thy mouth's melodious eloquence 



SUMMER. 



Beauty evolves its just pre-eminence : 
The lily, from some pensive-smitten chord 

Drawing significance 
Of purity, a visible hush stands ; starred 
With splendor, from thy passionate utterance, 

The rose writes its romance 

In blushing word on word. 

IV. 

As star by star day harps in evening, 

The inspiration of all things that sing 

Is in thy hands and from their touch takes wing : 

All brooks, all birds, — no similar songs can sate,— 

All wings, the wind and rain, 
Hoarse frogs and insects, singing rathe and late, 
Thy sympathies inspire, and yet remain 
Patient to invigorate 
With rest life's toiling brain. 

V. 

And as the night, like some mysterious rune, 
Its beauty makes emphatic with the moon, 
Thou lutest us no immaterial tune : 
But where hushed music haunts the cane and corn, 

And where the thick leaves throng, 
Earth's awful avatar, — in whom is born 
Thy own vast spirit, — labors all night long 

With growth, assuring morn 

Assumes like onward song. 



POEMS OF NA rURE AND LOVE. 

GARGAPHIE. 

" Succincta: sac?'a Diancz." — OviD. 



T^HERE the ragged sunlight lay 
Tawny on thick ferns and gray 

On dark waters : dimmer, 
Lone and deep, the cypress grove 
Shadowed whisperings and wove 
Braided lights, like those that love 
On the pearl plumes of a dove 

Pale to gleam and glimmer. 



There centennial pine and oak 
Into stormy utterance broke : 

Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting, 
Echoing in dim arcade. 
Looming with loose moss, that made 
Sunshine streaks in tatters laid : 
Oft a wild hart, hunt-afrayed, 

Plunged the water, panting. 



GARGAPHIE. 



Poppies of a sleepy gold 

Mooned the gold-green twilights rolled 

Down its vistas, making 
Fuzzy puffs of flame. And pale 
Stole the dim deer down the vale. 
And the haunting nightingale 
Throbbed not near — the olden tale 

All its hurt heart breaking. 

IV. 

There the hazy serpolet, 
Dewy cistus, blooming wet, 

Blushed on bank and boulder ; 
There the cyclamen, as wan 
As faint footprints of the Dawn, 
Carpeted the spotted lawn : 
There the nude nymph, dripping drawn, 

Basked a peachy shoulder. 

V. 

In the citrine shadows there 
What tall presences and fair, 

White and godly gracious, — 
Hidden where the rock-rose grew, — 
Watched through eyeballs of the dew, 
Or from sounding oaks ! and knew 
All the mystery of blue 

Heaven, vaulted spacious ! 



GARGAPHIE. 



VI. 



Guarded that Boeotian 
Valley so no foot of man 

Soiled its silence holy 
With profaning tread — save one, 
The Hyantian : Actaeon, 
He beheld . . . What god might shun 
Fate, Diana's wrath called down, 

With what magic moly ! — 

vri. 

Lost it lies ; like one who sleeps 
In serene enchantment ; keeps 

Beautiful in beamy 
Beauty of the flowers that be 
Wisdom's ; hope, its high stars see. 
Near in fountains ; deity, 
In wise wind-words of each tree — 
Gargaphie the dreamy. 



POEMS OF NA TURK AND LOVE. 



BENEATH THE BEECHES. 



I LONG, oh long to lie 

'Neath beechen branches, twisted 
Green 'twixt the summer sky ; 
The woodland shadows nigh — 
Brown dryads sunbeam-wristed : — 
The live-long day to dream 
Beside a wildwood stream. 



I long, oh long to hear 

The claustral forest's breathings, 

Sounds soothing to the ear ; 

The yellow-hammer near, 

Beam-bright, thrid wild-vine wreathings 

The live-long day to cross 

Slow o'er the nut-strewn moss. 



III. 



I long, oh long to see 

The nesting red-bird singing 



BENE A TH THE BEECHES. 



Glad on the wood-rose tree ; 
To watch the breezy bee, 
Half in the wildflower, swinging : 
God's live-long day to pass 
Deep in cool forest grass. 

IV. 

Oh you, so builded in 

With mart and booth and steeple, 

Brick alley-ways of Sin, 

"What hope for you to win 

Ways free of pelf and people ! 

Ways of the leaf and root 

And soft Mygdonian flute ! 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



THE BRUSH-SPARROW. 



"C RE wild-haws, looming in the glooms, 
Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms ; 
And in the whistling hollow there 
The red-bud bends as brown and bare 
As buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm ; 
From some gray hickory or larch, 
Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March, 
The sad heart thrills and reddens warm 
To hear you braving the rough storm, 
Frail courier of green-gathering powers : 
Rebelling sap in trees and flowers ; 
Love's minister come heralding — 
O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers ! 
O brown-red pursuivant of Spring ! 



II. 



*' Moan " sob the woodland cascades still 
Down bloomless ledges of the hill ; 
And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hang 
In harpy heavens, and swoop and clang 



THE BRUSH-SPARROW. 



Sharp beaks and talons of the wind : 
Black scowl the forests, and unkind 
The far fields as the near : while song 
Seems murdered and all beauty, wrong. 
One weak frog only in the thaw 
Of spawny pools wakes cold and, raw, 
Expires a melancholy bass 
And stops as if bewildered : then 
Along the frowning wood again. 
Flung in the thin wind's vulture face. 
From woolly tassels of the proud 
Red-bannered maples, long and loud, 
' ' Her Grace ! her Grace ! her Grace ! " 



III. 



Her Grace ! her Grace ! her Grace ! — 
Climbs beautiful and sunny-browed 
Up, up the kindling hills and wakes 
Blue berries in the berry brakes : 
With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach. 
Deep-powders smothered quince and peach 
Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes : 
Teaches each sod how to be wise 
With twenty wildflowers to one weed : 
And kisses germs that they may seed. 
In purest purple and sweet white 
Treads up the happier hills of light, 
Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair 
And balm and beam of odorous air : 



THE BRUSH-SPARROW. 



Winds, her retainers ; and the rains 

Her yeomen strong that sweep the plains 

Her scarlet knights of dawn, and gold 

Of eve, her panoply unfold : 

Her herald tabarded behold ! 

Awake to greet ! prepare to sing ! 

She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring ! 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



THE OLD FARM. 



pvORMERED and verandahed, cool, 

Locust-girdled on the hill, 
Stained with weather-wear and full 

Of weird whispers, at the will 
Of the sad wind's rise or lull ; 

I remember, it stood there 

Brown above the woodland ; deep 

In a scent of lavender, 

With slow shadows locked in sleep 

And the warm light everywhere. 

I remember how the spring, 
Liberal-lapped, bewildered its 

Squares of orchard, murmuring 

Kissed with budded puffs and bits, 

Where the wood-thrush came to sing. 

Barefoot so at first she trod, 

A pale beggar-maid, adown 
The quaint quiet, till the god 

With the seen sun for a crown 
And the firmament for rod. 



THE OLD FARM. 



Graced her nobly, wedding her — 

Her Cophetua. And so 
All the hill, one breathing blur. 

Burst in blossom, where the glow 
And the peach-sweet fragrance were. 

Seckel, blackheart palpitant 

Rained their bleaching strays ; and white 
Bulged the damson bent a-slant ; 

Russet-tree and romanite 
Seemed beneath deep drifts to pant. 

And it stood there, brown and gray. 
In the bee-boom and the bloom, 

In the murmur and the day. 
In the passion and perfume. 

Grave as age among the gay. 

Good as laughter romped the clear, 

Boyish voices round its walls ; 
Rare wild-roses were the dear 

Girlish faces in its halls. 
Music-haunted all the year. 

Far before it meadows full 

Of green pennyroyal sank ; 
Clover dots, like bits of wool 

Pinched from lambs ; and now a bank 
Of wild color ; and the cool 



THE OLD FARM. 



Brown-blue shadows undefined 
Of the clouds rolled overhead — 

Curdled mists that kept the wind 
Fresh with rain and comforted 

With soft songs forever kind. 

Where in mint and gypsy-lily 
Ran the rocky brook away, 

Musical among the hilly 

Solitudes, — its flashing spray 

Sunlight-soft or forest-stilly ; — 

Buried in thick sassafras. 
Half-way up the wooded hill. 

Moved some cowbell's muffled brass ; 
And the ruined water-mill 

Loomed half-hid in cane and grass, 

I remember — stands it yet 
On the hilltop, in the musk 

Of damp meads, while violet 
Deepens all the dreaming dusk, 

And the locust-trees hang wet 

With the dew ? while, far and low, 
One long tear of scarlet gashes. 

Tattered, the broad primrose glow 
Westward, and in weakest splashes 

Lilac stars the heavens sow ? 



THE OLD FARM. 



Sleeps it still among its roses, 
Red and yellow, while the choir 

Of the lonesome insects dozes ? 

And the white moon, drifting higher, 

Brightens and the darkness closes — 

Sleeps it still among its roses ? 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



THE BRIDLE-PATH. 



'X'HROUGH meadows of the iron-weeds, 
Whose purple blooms flash, slipping 
Twice-twinkling drops of dewy beads, 
The thin path twists and winding leads 

Through woodland hollows dripping ; 
Down to a creek with bedded reeds ; 
On to the lilied dam that feeds 
The mill, whose wheel through willow-bredes 

Winks, the white water whipping. 



It wends through meads of mint and brush 
Where silvery seeds sink drowsy. 

Or sail along the heatful hush ; 

Past where the bobwhite in the bush 
Has built a nest, and frowsy 

Hides calling clear. A split through crush 

Of crowded saplings, low and lush ; 

A seam by pools of flag and rush 
Where blows the brier-rose blowsy. 



THE BRIDLE'PA TH. 



III. 

Across the ragweed fallow-lot, 

Whose low-rail fence encumbers 
The dense-packed berries ripening hot ; 
Where on the summer, one far spot 
Of gray, the gray hawk slumliers. 
Then in the greenwood where the rot 
Of leaves and loam smells cool ; and shot 
With dotting dark the touch-me-not 
Swings curling horns in numbers. 



IV. 

Around brown rocks that bulge and lie 

Deep in damp ferns and mosses, — 
Like giants, each lounged on his thigh 
To watch some forest quarry die, — 
The path toils steej) ; then crosses 
A braml>le-l)ridge ; up-whirring nigh 
A wood-dove startles, 'thwart the sky 
A jarring light : and babbling by 
The brook its diamonds tosses. 



Ho ! through the wildwood then we go 

In pulse of shade and singing ; 
W^here pale-pink sorrel-grasses grow ; 
The vari-colored toadstools sow 



THE RRIDLE-PA TH. 



And swell the soil, hestiinging 
The red-oak's roots. Where, swinging low 
Their green burs, limbs rulj when each slow, 
Faint forest wind sounds. Fresh the flow 

Of hidden waters ringing. 



VI. 

While far away among the cane, 
Or spice-bush belts, the tinkle 
Of one stray bell drifts yet again. 
Lost near some lone and leafy lane 

Where smooth the red ruts wrinkle 
Now up the sky a grayish stain 
Spreads smoky blue. A hint of rain. 
The sun is hid. Hard down the grain 
A gust dents ; an<l a sprinkle 



Has drilled the dimi)led dust. Hark ! — one 

Big mouthful of the thunder — 
And, scurrying with the dust, we run 
Into a whiff of hay and sun, 

Of cribs and barns ; and under 
The martin-builded eaves, — where dun 
The sparrows house with fuss and fun, — 
*' Will it be done soon as begun?" 

We wonder and we wonder. 



THE BRIDLE-PA TH. 



VIII. 

A crashing wedge of stormy light 

Vibrating blinds, and dashes 
A monster elm to splinters quite ; 
A hush, then rushing rain that white 

The tumbled straw-stack lashes. . . 
The rain is over. Left and right 
Foregathering gales of green delight. 
Fresh rain scents of each wood and height 

Where each blade drips and flashes. 

IX. 

A ghostly gold burns slowly through 
The crumbled clouds ; and woven 
From rainy rose to rainy blue 
A dim pearl-dotting as of dew 

Dies into trembling doven. 
High-buoyed in rack now one or two 
Slight stars shine white — the pirate clew 
To night's rich hoard. — The west 's a hue 
Of bruised pomegranate cloven. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



A GRAY DAY. 



T ONG volleys of wind and of rain, 

And the rain on the drizzled pane,/ 

And the dusk comes chill and murk ; 
But on yesterday's eve I know 
How a new moon's thorn-like bow 
Stabbed rosy through gold and through glow, 

Like a rich, barbaric dirk. 



The throats of the snapdragons, — 
Cool-colored like dewiest dawns 

That a healthy yellow paints, — 
Are filled with a sweet rain fine 
Of a jaunty, jubilant shine, 
A faery vat of rare wine, 

That the honey thinly taints. 



III. 

Dabbled the poppies shrink, 
And the coxcomb and the pink ; 

And the candytuft's damp crown 
Droops dribbled, low bowed i' the wet ; 



A GRAY DAY. 



Long counters of mignonette 
Little musk-sacks open let, 

From the shelves o' the dew dragged down. 



Stretched taunt on the blades of grass, 
A gossamer-fibered glass, 

That the garden-spider spun. 
The web, where the round rain clings 
In its middle sagging, swings — 
A hammock for elfin things 

When the stars succeed the sun. 



And, mark, where the pale gourd grows 
As high as the climbing rose, 

How the tiger-moth is pressed 
To the wide leaf's under side. — 
And I know where the red wasps hide, 
And the brown bees, — that defied 

The first strong gusts, — distressed. 

VI. 

Yet I feel that the gray will blow 
Aside for an afterglow ; 

And the wind, on a sudden, toss 
Drenched boughs to a pattering show'r 
Athwart the red dusk in a glow'r. 
Big drops heard hard on each flow'r, 

On the grass and the flowering moss. 



A GRAY DAY. 



And then for a minute, may be, — 
A pearl — hollow-worn — of the sea, — 

A glimmer of moon will smile ; 
Cool stars rinsed clean o' the dusk ; 
A freshness of gathering musk 
O'er the showery lawns, as brusque 

As spice from an Indian Isle. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



THE MOOD O' THE EARTH. 

ly/l Y heart is high, is high, my dear, 

As the wind in the wood that blows ; 
My heart is high with a mood that 's cheer, 
And burns like a sun-blown rose. 

My heart is high, my dear, my dear, 
And the heaven's deep skies are blue ; 

My heart goes out to the passionate year. 
As glad as a cloud with dew. 

My heart, my heart is high, my sweet. 
And wild as the smell o' the wood, 

That gusts i' the breeze with a pulse of heat, 
Mad heat that beats like a blood. 

My heart is high ; and it guides my feet 
Where the sense of summer is full ; 

A sense of summer — full fields of wheat, 
Full forests the swift_ creeks cool. 

My heart is one, is one, my heart. 
With the brown bee's heart that sinks 

And sounds i' the flowers that dip and part 
To his dusty body that drinks. 



THE MOOD O' THE EARTH. 



My heart is high, my heart, my heart ! 

Sing ! sing again, O good, gray bird ! 
That I may get that lilt by heart, 

And fit each note with a word. 

God's saints ! I tread the air, my dear ! 

Am one with the hoiden wind ; 
And the stars that stare I swear, my dear, 

Right soon in my hair I '11 find. — 

To live high up a life of mist, 

With the white things in white skies, — 
With their limbs of pearl and of amethyst, - 

Who laugh blue, humorous eyes ! 

To creep and to suck, like an elfin thing. 

In the aching heart of a rose ; 
In the bluebell's ear to cling and swing 

And whisper what no one knows ! 

To live on wild honey as fresh as thin 
As the rain that 's left in a flower ! 

And roll out golden from toe to chin 
In the god-flower's Danae shower ! 

Or free, full-throated, bend back the throat. 
With a vigorous look at the blue. 

And sing, and sing with a staunch wild note, 
Like the thrush there ere it flew. 



26 THE MOOD (9' THE EARTH. 

God's life ! the blood o' the Earth is mine ! 

And the mood o' the Earth I '11 take, 
And brim my soul with her wonderful wine 

And sing till my heart doth break ! 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



AMONG THE ACRES OF THE WOOD. 



T KNOW, I know, 
The way doth go 
Athwart a greenwood glade, oh ! 
White bloom the wild-plums in that glade, 
White as the bosom of the maid, 
Who, stooping, sits, and milks and sings 
Among the dew-dashed clover-rings, 
When fades the flush, the henna blush. 
Of evening's glow, an orange low, 
And all the winds are laid, oh ! 



I wot, I wot : 
And is it not 
Right o'er the viney hill ? 
Say ! where the wild-grapes mat and make 
Penthouses to each bramble-brake. 
And dangle plumes of fragrant blooms ? 
Where leaking sunbeams string the glooms 
With beryl beads ? where sprinkled weeds 
Blue blossoms fill ? and shrill, oh, shrill, 
Sings all night long one whippoorwill? 



28 AMONG THE ACRES OF THE WOOD. 



I ween, I ween 
The path is green 
'Neath beechen boughs that let 
Sly glances of the bashful sky 
Gleam usward like a girlish eye : 
At night one far and lambent star 
Shines limpid, like a watching Lar, 
'Mid branching buds a tangled bud 
Where in the acres of the wood 
Blow strips of wet, wild violet, 
And only we have trysting met. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 29 



NOONING. 



"\ A/EAK winds that make the water wink ; 

White clouds that sail from lands of Fable, 
To white Utopias of vague brink, 
Down gulfs of blue unfathomable : 

Their rolling shadows drifting 

O'er fields of forest, lifting 
Wild peaks of purple range that loom and sink. 



II. 

Warm knolls whereon the Nooning dreams ; 
In droning dells that bask in brightness, 
Low-lulled with hymns of mountain-streams, 
Far-foaming falls of windy whiteness ; 

Where, from the glooming hollow 
With cawing crows that follow. 
The hunted hawk wings wearily and screams. 






Dry-buzzing heat and drought that thrills 
With one harsh locust's lonesome whirring 



NOONING. 



No answering voice shouts on the hills, 
Receding echoes far-recurring — 

As when the Dawning dimpled, 

With hazel twilight wimpled, 
From dewy tops called o'er responding rills. 

IV. 

Wan with sweet summer hangs the deep. 
Hot heaven with the high sun hearted — 
A wide May-apple bloom asleep 
With golden-pistled petals parted. — 

Now — could befall, — her pouting 
Cheeks anger-red, — from sprouting 
Rock-mosses some white wildwood Dream might 
leap. 



POEMS OF NA TURK AND LOVE. 



THE LOG-BRIDGE. 



T AST month, where the old log-bridge is laid 
O'er the woodland brook, in the belts o' the 
shade. 
To the right, to the left, pink-packed was made 

A gloaming glory of scented tangle 
By the bramble roses there — that wade 
High-heaped on the sides — when they bloomed to 

fade. 
And, wilting, powdered the ruts, and swayed 

To the waters beneath loose loops of spangle ; 

When the breeze that blew and the beam that rayed 

Were murmurous-soft with the bees a-wrangle. 



This month — 't is August — the lane that leads 
To the bramble-bridge runs waste with weeds, 
That bloom bright saffron, or satin seeds 

Of thistle-fleece blow at you. Hazy 
And starry the lane with the thousand bredes 
Of the yellow daisy — like sweet-eyed creeds 
Peacefully praying. — Now by you speeds 

A butterfly sumptuous with mottle and lazy. 
A yellowish-red, where the blue-bird pleads, 

The sumach's tassel dips down to the daisy. 



THE LOG-BRIDGE. 



III. 

All golden the spot in the noon's gold shine, 
Where the yellow-bird sits with eyes of wine 
And swings and whistles ; where, line on line, 

In coils of warmth the sunbeams nestle ; 
Where cool by the pool (where the crawfish, fine 
As a shadow's shadow, darts dim) to mine 
The wet creek-clay with their peevish whine, 

Come mason-hornets ; and roll and wrestle 
With balls of clay they carry and twine 

In hollow nests on the joists o' the trestle. 

IV. 

Where the horsemint shoots through the grasses, — 

high 
On the root-thick rivage that roofs, — a dry. 
Gray knob that bristles with pink, the sigh 

Of crickets is sharp 'neath the dead leaves' 
bosoms : 
When the woods grow dusk you will hear the cry 
Of a passing bird flit twittering by ; 
And the frogs' grave antiphons rise and die : 

And here to drink steal the wild opossums, 
While lithe on those roots two lizards lie. 

Brown-backed like the bark, or stir the 
blossoms, 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 33 ! 

. J 



AMONG THE KNOBS. \ 

'T'HERE is a place embanked with brush 1 

Three wooded knobs beyond, < 

Lost in a valley where the lush ', 

Wild eglantine blows blonde. \ 

Where light the dogwoods earliest ' 

Their torches of white fires, 

And, bee-bewildered, east and west '\ 

The red haws build white spires. 

1 

The wan wild apples' flowery sprays \ 

Blur through the misty gloom \ 

A pensive pink ; and by lone ways s 

The close blackberries bloom, 1 



I love the spot : a shallow brook 

Slips from the forest, near 
The cane-brake and the violet nook, 

Its rustling depths so clear. 

The minnows glimmer where they glide 

Above its rocky bed — 
A long, dear, boyhood's brook, not wide. 

Which has its sparkling head 
3 



AMONG THE KNOBS. 



Among the rainy hiJls ; and drops 

By four low waterfalls — 
Wild music of an hundred stops — 

Between the leafy walls, 

Against the water-gate, that hangs 

A rude portcullis, — dull 
With lichened moss, — whose clumsy fangs 

The cress makes beautiful. 

The glass-green dragon-flies about 

The seeding grasses swim ; 
The streaked wasps, worrying in and out, 

Dart fretfully and slim. 

Here in the moon-gold moss, that glows 

Like jets of moonlight, dies 
The weak anemone ; and blows 

A flower less blue than skies. 

And, where in April tenderly 

The dewy primrose made 
A thin, peculiar fragrance, we, 

In the pellucid shade, 

Found wild-strawberries half-abud. 

In May long berries, — fresh, 
And pallid pink as wood-bird blood, — 

Stained many a trailing mesh. 



AMONG THE KNOBS. 



Once from that hill a farmhouse 'mid 
Deep orchards — cozy brown 

In lilacs and old roses hid — 

With picket-fence looked down. 

O'er ruins now the roses guard ; 

The plum and seckel-pear 
And the apricot rot on the sward 

Their wasted ripeness there. 

But when the huckleberries blow 
Their waxen bells I '11 tread 

Those dear accustomed ways, that go 
Adown the orchard, led 

To that avoided spot, which seems 
The haunt of vanished springs ; 

Lost as the hills in drowsy dreams 
Of visionary things. 



36 POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



LATE OCTOBER. 

DULGED from its cup the dark brown acorn falls, 

And by its gnarly saucer, in the stream's 
Clear puddles, swells ; the spiky spruce-gum balls 

Rust maces of an ouphen host that dreams ; 
Beneath the chestnut-tree the burry hulls 

Split, and pour purses from their pockets' seams. 

Burst silver white, nods, — an exploded husk 
Of snowy, woolly smoke, — the milk-weed's puff 

Along the orchard's fence ; where in the dusk 
And ashen weeds, — as some grim Satyr's rough 

Red, breezy cheeks burn through his beard, — the 
brusque 
Crab-apples laugh, wind-tumbled from above. 

And through the wasted leaves the crickets' clicks 
Run feeble as a sound of fairy cheers. 

One bird sits in the sumach, flits and picks 
Its sour seeds. Far in the woods one hears 

The drop of walnuts. Round the straw's tall ricks, 
With lifted horns, one sees the lowing steers. 

Some slim, bud-bound Leimoniad hath flocked 
The birds, to lead them where the Southern 
foams 



LA TE OCTOBER. 



Sing of forgetfulness. Where once were rocked \ 

Unnumbered bees within unnumbered blooms, ^ 

One languid bee crawls in one bloom and, locked ; 

Therein, dreams of the summer's oozing combs. ] 

Winds shake the maples, and all suddenly 

A storm of leafy stars and whispers leaks ; 

Down like a Dryad's coming. To her knee i 

Wading, the Naiad haunts her brook that streaks ■ 

Through golden waifs. Hark ! Pan for Helike J 

Flutes in the forest, while he seeks and seeks. 1 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



FALL. 



UAR off a wind blew, and I heard 

Wide echoes of the woods reply — 
The herald of some royal word 

From bannered trumpet blown to die 
On hills that held the sky. 

The pomp of forests seemed to meet 
Bluff monarchs on a cloth of gold ; 

Where berries of the bittersweet, 

That, splitting, show the coals they hold, 
Sowed garnets through the wold : 

Where, under tents of maples, bredes 
Of smooth carnelians, oval red, 

The spice-bush spangled : where, like beads, 
The dogwood's rounded rubies — fed 
With fire — blushed and bled. 



To meet my dream my soul went out, 
And marked, 'mid richness cavalier, 

A minne-singer — lips a-pout, 

A voice like music's — standing near, 
' A rose stuck in his ear : 



FALL. 39 

Eyes, dancing like old German wine, 
All mirth and moonlight ; naught to spare 

Of slender beard, that lends a line 
Unto his lip ; and, curling fair, 
A chestnut wealth of hair. 

His blue baretta's sweeping plume 
A beam of whiteness droops ; his hose, 

Puffed at the thighs, of purple loom ; 
His tawny doublet, slashed with rose, 
A dangling dagger shows : 

A slim lute slants his breast. . . I hear 
The leaf-crisp coming of his foot — 

No wonder that the regnant Year 
Bends to his beauty, blushing mute, 
And sighs to be his lute. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



THE FOREST POOL. 



/^NE memory persuades me when 

Dusk's lonely star burns overhead, 
To take the gray path through the glen- 

That finds the forest pool, made red 
With sunset — and forget again, 
Forget that she is dead. 

Once more to look long in the spring, 
That on one rock a finger white 

Of foam that beckons still doth bring ; 
Some moon-wan spirit of the night 

Who dwells among its murmuring. 
Her life the sad moonlight. 

To see the red dusk touch it here 
With fire like a blade of blood ; 

One star's reflection, white and clear 
As some wood-blossom's fallen bud ; 

While all my grief stands very near, 
Pale in the solitude. 

And it shall be before the moon 
Hangs — silver as a twisted horn 



THE FOREST POOL. 



Blown out of elfland sweet with tune — 
White in white clusters of the thorn, 
That in the water, over soon, 
An image shall be born : 

That has her throat of frost ; her lips, 
Her lips where God's anointment lies 

Her eyes, wherefrom love's arrow-tips 
Break like the starlight of dark skies : 

Her hair, a hazel heap that slips ; 

Her throat and hair and eyes. 

And I shall stoop ; the water kissed, 
The face fades from me into air ; 

Down in the wrinkled amethyst 
My own face sad as old despair ; 

Then — night and mist ; and in the mist 
One dead leaf fallen there. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



HAUNTED. 



"\X/ITHOUT a moon when night comes on 

There is a sighing in its trees 
As of sad lips that no one sees ; 
And the far-dwindling forest, large 
Beyond fenced fields, seems shadowy drawn 
Into its shadows. Faint and wan, 
By the wistariaed portico 
Stealing, I go 

Through gardens where the weeds are rank : 
Where, here and there, in patch and bank. 
Rise clumped the spiarees whose blooms 
Seem dots of starlight ; and the four 
Syringas sweet heap, powdered o'er. 
Thin flower-beakers of perfumes ; 
And the dead flowering almond-tree 
Once maiden pink. Still bower on bower, 
The roses climb in blushing flower — 
And from the roses shall I see 
Her sad, sad eyes shine like the flowers, 
That nestle dew-drops hours on hours. 
Wistful, as if reproaching me ? 



i 

NA UNTED. 43 1 



When midnight comes it brings a moon : 

A scent is strewn 

Of honey and wild-thorns broadcast ^ 

Beneath the stars. When I have passed \ 

Under dark cedars, lonely pines, i 

To dodder-drowned petunias, \ 

Corn-flower and pale columbine, | 

And mauve azaleas choked with grass, ;; 

White peonies like wisps of shine ; 

Have passed by honey-suckle vines, 

Piled deep and trammelled with the gourd 

And morning-glory — one wild hoard 

Of rich aroma — and have heard \ 

The plaintive note of some lost bird i 

Trickle through night, — awakened where, ( 

'Neath its thick lair of twisted twigs. 

The jarring and incessant grigs \ 

Hum, — dream-drugged so, the haunted air i 

Makes all my soul as heavy as ^ 

Dew-poppied grass. \ 

III. ; 

Once when the moon rose flushed and full, — \ 

Like some sea-seen hesperian pool, \ 

A splash of gold through tangling trees, — 

There came slow sighings in the trees 

As of sad lips that no one sees. ; 

And when, all in a mystic space, 



HA UN TED. 



Her orb swam amiable white, 
Right in yon shattered casement, by 
The broken porch the creepers lace, 
Made of a whisper and a sigh 
I thought her face 

Formed in a mist of tears ; so slight, 
So beautiful, its pensive grace 
Was like an olden melody. 



IV. 



I know, long-angled on its floors, 

Where windows greet the anxious east, 

The moonshine pours 

White squares of glitter and, at least, 

Gives glimmer to its moaning halls : 

Sleep-tapestried, dim corridors 

Wake whispers : by its wasted walls 

Stand shadows : and where streaked dusts lay 

Their undisturbed, deep gray. 

Walk vision-footed sighs. Below 

I hear a murmur come and go 

Through one great buckeye near her room. — 

Ah ! know I not how those broad flues 

Of her old home the winds make hoarse ? 

Sonorous throats that growl and boom 

With wafts that slink through avenues 

Of summer, singing in their course, 

Where blossoms drip, to swing them back ? 



HAUNTED. 



Its echoes, and the stealthy crack 
Old, warping stairs give ; and the black 
That drapes each room the mind informs 
To fling from closets phantom arms ? . . , 



I see her face beseeching pressed 
To the rugged, polished floor ; distressed, 
Pinched in her blind and praying hands ; 
So desolate with anguish, wrenched 
With all remorse mind understands : 
See him who stood and sneered and fled 
Still unrelenting. Then again 
Myself come stealing in : fast-clenched 
In staring eyes all the hard pain 
Cramped to dilation, with a groan 
To find a huddled heap alone — 
Her white and dead. 



Yes, there is moan 
Of lamentation and hushed screams 
In all its crannies and lean shades 
Make melancholy rooms where braids 
The lacy moonlight. Slow have flown 
The years ! the years ! and 1 have known 
An anguish and remorse far v/orse 
Than usual life's, and live, it seems. 
Because to live is but a curse. . . . 



46 HA UN TED. 



There lies the burying-place ; that ground 

Gated with rusty iron ; stone 

Squares in a mossy spot of dreams : 

Wild just the same ; its roses waste 

Limp, placid petals ; yonder some 

Lie loose like puffs of foam 

On bold, unhealthy weeds ; displaced, 

Strew wiltings here my feet around. 

Wild roses and wild thorns, where moan 

The sorrowing wood-doves and 

The sad days slumber bland. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



GHOSTLY WEATHER. 

"VA/ILD gusts of drizzle hoot and hiss 

Through dodging lindens whistled through. 
The dead's own days be days like this — 
Yes, let me sit and be with you ; 

Here in your willow chair whose seat 

Spreads scarlet plush. Hark ! how the gusts 

In sad aeolian cracks repeat 

Mild moans ! — They haunt your room, where 
dusts 

Make dim each ornament and chair ; 

That locked-in memory where you died. 
Since angels stood there, saintly fear 

Guards each dark angle, mournful-eyed. 

Through this dim day stoop your dim face ; 

Gray eyes, like rain-drops, dimly deep ; 
A soft gray cloudiness of lace, 

Stand near me while I sleep, I sleep. 



48 POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



APOCALYPSE. 



DEFORE I found you I had found 

Of your true eyes the open book 
(Where re-created heaven wound 
Its wisdom with it) in the brook. 



Ah, when I found you, looking in 
Those Scriptures of your eyes, above 

All earth, o'ersoared earth's vulture. Sin, 
So apotheosized to love. 



And, searching yet beneath it, saw 
The soul impatient of the sod — 

What wonder then your love should draw 
Me to the nearer love of God. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 49 \ 

] 

\ 

\ 

UNCERTAINTY. ' 

" ' He Cometh not^' she said'' — MARIANA. . 

TT will not be to-day and yet i 

I think and dream it will ; and let • 

The slow uncertainty devise \ 
So many sweet excuses, met 

By many sad, confuting lies. \ 

I 

The panes were sweated with the dawn ; 

Yet through their dimness, shriveled drawn | 

The aigret of one princess-feather, 5 

One monk's-hood tuft with oilets wan, \ 

I glimpsed, dead in the slaying weather. ' 

This morning when my window's chintz 

I drew, how gray the day was ! — Since 

I saw him, yea, all days are gray ! — 

I gazed out on my dripping quince, ; 

Defruited, gnarled, then turned away ■ 

To weep, and did not weep ; but felt \ 

A colder anguish than did melt 

About the tearful-visaged year : J 

Then flung the lattice wide and smelt 

The autumn sorrow : Rotting near ; 

4 \ 



UNCERTAINTY. 



The rain-soaked sunflowers, burnt and bleached, 
Up which the frost-nipped gourd-vines reached, 
Or morning-glories, seeded o'er 
With ashen aiglets, whence beseeched 
One blue bloom's brilliant palampore. 

The podded hollyhocks — vague, tall. 
Wind-battered sentries — by the wall 
Rustled their tatters ; dripped and dripped 
The fog thick on them. Dying, all 
The tarnished, hag-like zinnias tipped. 

I felt the death and loved it : yea, 
To have it nearer, sought the gray. 
Chill, fading garth. Yet could not weep ; 
But only sigh some " well-a-way " 
And yearn with weariness to sleep. 

Mine were the fog, the frosty stalks. 
The weak lights on the leafy walks, 
The shadows shivering with the cold ; 
The torpid cricket's dreary talks, 
The last, dim, ruined marigold. 

But when to-night the moon swings low — 

A great marsh-marigold of glow — 

And all my garden with the sea 

Moans, then through phantom mist, I know 

His shadow '11 come to comfort me. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 51 \ 

I 

OVERSEAS. 

Non numero horas^ nisi serenas. 

'\A7'HEN fall fills morns with mist, it seems, 

In soul I am a part of it ; i 

Lib'rating on the humid beams, ; 

A form of frost, I float and flit 3 

From dreams to dreams. ... ] 

i 

An old chateau sleeps 'mid the hills i 

Of France : an avenue of sorbs \ 

Conceals it : drifts of daffodils 

Bloom by a 'scutcheoned gate with barbs 

Like iron bills. •' 

I pass the gate unquestioned, yet \ 

I feel announced. Broad holm-oaks make j 

Dark pools of restless violet, .; 

Between the bramble banks a lake — \ 

As in a net j 

The tangled scales twist silver — shines, ; 

Gray, mossy turrets swell above 

The whispering leaves. Among the vines l 

Rise ivied walls, A spot for love \ 

Beneath the pines, | 

\ 
Its angular windows, dimly seen 

From distant lanes with hawthorn hedged, \ 

Beam broadly on the nectarine j 



OVERSEAS. 



Espaliered, and the peach-tree, wedged 
'Twixt climbing green. 

Cool-babbling a fountain falls 

From gryphons' mouths in porphyry ; 

Its carp swim eddying ; white balls 
Of lilies dip it when the bee 
Crawls in and drawls. 

And butterflies, each with a face 
Of Faery on its wings, recline — 

Beheaded pansies blown, that chase 
Each other — down the shade and shine 
Boughs interlace. 

And roses ! roses, soft as vair, 

'Round sylvan statues and one old 

Stone dial — Pompadours that wear 
Their royalty of purple and gold 
With saucy air. 

Her scarf, her lute, whose ribbons breathe 
The perfume of her touch ; her gloves, 

Modeling the daintiness they sheathe ; 
Her fan, a Watteau, gay with loves, 
Lie there beneath 

A bank of eglantines that heaps 

A rose-strewn shadow. Naive-eyed, 

With lips as suave as they, she sleeps ; 
The romance by her, open wide, 
O'er which she weeps. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



ACT III. 

T TPLIFTED darkness and the owl-light breaks, 
Scuds the wild land, pursuing patch with 
patch, 
As when deep camomile a swift wind shakes. 
How clumsily I raised the crazy latch ! . . . 
So. — When yon black bulk, light-absorbing, rakes 
Again the moon's bald disk — 
Out ! and the storm may snatch 
Again wet hair, pulled lank with wind and rain 
Two hours since. — There from the ragged plain 
A dark cloud-besom sweeps the beams again . . . 
On ! on ! . . . What fear or risk ? . . . 

Close to the fellside hugs the bramble hollow 
Whining with wind, a pausing wind that grieves 
Through the one crippled ash, whose nervous 

leaves 
Worry and mutter, wooden as the lips 
Of dead men kissing. There a gnarled vine slips 
Up a humped, cloven rock, that seems to wallow 
A gorgon head of ugly writhings ; heaves 
When, heaped abruptly on it, Jiare ! 
Burst rain and tempest-glare. — 
This passed, I follow 



ACT III. 



A thorny slip of path until 
I reach the storm-scarred hill. 

Shall I not then be breathless, sinking sense, 
For ghastlier yet to come ? — Some sterner strength 
Sustain my soul ! — Beyond the hill the dense, 
Dead wood remains and then . . . that livid 

length 
Of mooning water, spectral and immense 
With sullen storm and night . . . 
There, if the ghoulish wind, — 
Which knows well as I know how I have sinned, 
— Will cease to curse me in its hag-like spite, 
Disturbed with horror only of my soul, 
I '11 see among cramped reeds, the storm has 

thinned. 
His wide, white eyes, metallic in the light 
Of the impassive moon ; in gusty roll 
Of washing ripples, webby, slippery locks 
Dabbling and dark. Or, wedged among fierce 

rocks. 
Wild-pinched and water-strangled white, 
His murdered face that mocks. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



LOST LOVE. 

T LOVED her madly. For — so wrought 
Young Love, divining Isles of Truth 
Large in the central Seas of Youth — 
" Love will be loved," I thought. 

Once when I brought a rare wild-pink 
To place among her plants, the wise, 
Still guerdon of her speaking eyes 

Said more than thanks, I think. 

She loved another. Ah ! too well 
I have the story in my soul ! — 
A weary tale the weary whole 

Of how she loved and fell. 

I loved her so ! . . . Remembering of 
My mad grief then, I wonder why 
It is such griefs grow gray and die 

While lives still live and love ? 

Strange, is it not ? For grief was dear 
To me as she once. A regret 
It is now ; just to make eyes wet 

And lift a big sob here. 



S6 LOST LOVE. 



Yet, had she lived as dead in shame 

As now in death, Love w^ould have used 
Pride's pitying pencil and abused 

The memory of her name. 

This makes me thank my God, who led 
My broken life in sunlight of 
This pure affection, that my love 

Lives by her being dead. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 57 



ON A PORTRAIT. 



A T seventeen she grew between 

His gaze and some old-world romance 
A face, — seductive and serene 
As all that old romance may mean, — 
With dark eyes waking from a trance. 
At seventeen. 



At twenty-one no song might run ' 

More sweetly than his longing leapt ! 

To her, — whose loveliness begun \ 

For him all song beneath the sun, — | 

With eyes of brown where laughter slept. "! 

At twenty-one. 

III. \ 

\ 

At thirty-two no dreams would do ! — .^ 

He loved this daughter of the South, ' 

Whose eyes of blue his fancy drew, 

What time the battle bugles blew 

To dash him on the cannon's mouth. 

At thirty-two. \ 



S8 POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



AFTER THE TOURNAMENT. 



A ND shall it be, when white thorns flake 
With blossoms all the budding brake, 
The rustle of one lifting leaf 

Will whisper low ? 
And one be near thee as thy grief — 
And wilt thou know ? 

II. 

Or shall it be, when blows and dies 
The forest columbine, two eyes 

Will bloom against thine faint as frost ? 

Thou, deep in dreams, 
Wilt hark what plaintive winds sigh, lost 
In life that seems. 



III. 

Or shall it be, where rocks slope, smooth 
With water-wear, where vague lights sooth, 
One in an old lute will beseech 

Thy listening ears 
With Provence melodies, that reach 
The soul like tears ? . . . 



AFTER THE TOURNAMENT. 



Yes, this will be — Loop thy white arm 
Beneath my hair ... so ; let thy warm 
Blue eyes gaze in mine for a space, 

A little while ; 
Love, it will rest me ; and thy face — 
Ah, let it smile. 



Now art thou thou. Yet — let thy hair, 
A golden fragrance, fall ; thy fair 

Full throat bend low ; thy kiss be hot 

With joy, not dry 
With anguish. — Sweet my Evalott ! 
Now let me die. 



6o POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



ORIENTAL ROMANCE. 



OEYOND lost seas of summer she 
Dwelt on an island of the sea, 
Last scion of that dynasty, 
Queen of a race forgotten long. — 
With lips of light and eyes of song. 
From seaward groves of blowing lemon, 
She called me in her native tongue, 
Low-leaned on some rich robe of Yemen. 



II. 

I was a king. Three moons we drove 
Across green gulfs, the crimson clove 
And cassia spiced, to claim her love. 
Stuffed was my barque with gems and gold 
Strips of rare sandalwood, grown old 
With odor ; and pink pearls of Oman, 
Than her chaste breasts less purely cold ; 
And myrrh less fragrant than this woman. 

III. 

From Bassora I came. We saw 
Her condor castle on a claw 



ORIENTAL ROMANCE. 



Of savage precipice, o'erawe 

Besieging of the roaring spray : 

Like some rough opal white it lay 

Above us, all its towers a-taper, 

Wherefrom, like an aroma, day 

Struck splintered lights of sapphirine vapor. 

IV. 

Lamenting caverns dark, that keep 

Sonorous echoes of the deep, 

Moaned demon-haunted 'neath the steep.— 

Fair as the moon whose light is shed 

In Ramadan, the queen, who led 

My love unto her island bowers, 

I found . . , yea, lying young and dead 

Among her maidens and her flowers. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



PORPHYROGENITA. 



"XA/AS it when Kriemhild was queen 
That we rode by ways forgotten 
Through the Rhineland, all serene 

'Neath a low moon white as cotton ? 
I, a knight or troubadour? 
Thou, a princess though a poor 

Damsel of the Royal Closes ? — 
I have dreamed it somehow sure, 

Reading of Kriemhilda's roses. 



Or in Venice by the sea 

What romance grew up between us? 
Thou a doge's daughter ? — she 

Titian painted as a Venus ? 
I, a gondolier whose barque 
Glided past thy palace dark ? — 

Near Saint Mark's or Casa d'Oro ? — 
All thy casement sprang a-spark 

At my barcarolle's " Te oro." 

III. 

Klaia, one of Egypt ; yea. 
Languid as its sacred lily ; 



PORPHYROGENITA . 



Didst with me a year and day 
Love upon the Isle of Philae ? 

I, a priest of Isis ? — Sweet, 

'Neath the date-palms did we meet 
By a temple's pillared marble? 

While from its star-still retreat 

Sank the nightingale's wild warble ? 



Have I dreamed that, I a slave, 

From thy lattice, O sultana ! 
Veilless, thy white hand did wave 

Me a Persian rose, sweet manna 
Of thy lips' kiss in its heart ? 
That, through my Chaldeean art, 

With thy Khalif's bags of treasure. 
From Damascus we did start 

Westward to some land of pleasure ? 



Was it thou or, haply, thou ? — 
Thou or thou, thou wast so dearest 

That thy memory holds me now 
Like a passion ; lying nearest 

To dead evolutions of 

Death to life and life to love : 
Truth invisible, but clearest 

To the soul that looks above. 



64 POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



THE CASTLE OF LOVE. 



He speaks. 



VOU ask how I knew that I knew it ? — 

Like the king in the Asian tale, 
I wandered on deserts that panted 
With noon to a castle enchanted, 

That Afrits had built in a vale ; 

A vale where the sunlight lay pale 
As moonlight. And round it and through it 

I searched and I searched. Like the tale 



No eunuch black-browed as a Marid 
Prevented me. Silences seemed — 

Nude slaves with the kohl and the henne 

In eyes and on fingers — so many 

"White whispers in dimness that dreamed 
Where censers of ambergris steamed : 

And I came on a colonnade quarried 
From silvery marble, it seemed. 



THE CASTLE OF LOVE. 



Til, 

And here a wide court rose estraded : 
Rich tulips, like carbuncles, bloomed 

'Mid jonquil and jessamine glories ; 

Strange birds, like the cockatoos, lories. 
Spread wings, like great blossoms, illumed. 
Or splashed in the fountain perfumed ; 

Kept captive by network of braided, 
Spun gold where low galleries gloomed. 



IV. 

From nipples of five bending Peris 

Of gold that was auburn, in rays 
The odorous fountain sprang calling : 
I heard through the white water's falling, — 

More sweet than the laughter of sprays, 

Than songs of our happiest days, — 
A music sigh soft, as if fairies 

Touched wind-harps v/hose chords were of rays. 



V. 

I searched through long corridors paneled 
With sandal ; whose doorways hung draped 

With stuffs of Chosroes, deep-garded 

With Indian gold : up the corded 

Stone stairway's bronze dragons that gaped 
Through moon-spangled hangings escaped — 
5 



66 THE CASTLE OF LO VE. 

'Twixt pillars of juniper channeled — 
To a room constellated and draped. 



As in legends : — of visions a vassal, 

One hears, yet beholds naught, and hears 

A voice that encourages yearnings ; — 

More subtle than aloes-wood burnings, 
The chamber sings, filled for the ears 
With melody ; nothing appears, — 

My life found your soul such a castle, 
Your love is the music it hears. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 67 



CONSECRATION. 

She speaks. 

T AST night you told me, where we, parting, 
waited. 

Of love somehow I 'd known before you told — 
Long, long ago this love, perhaps, was fated, 

For why was it made suddenly so old ? 

"Dear things we have and in their own truth 
cherish, 

Born with us seem, and as ourselves shall last ? 
Part of our lives, we can not let them perish 

Out of our present's future or its past " ? 

Then is it strange, dazed by that wider wonder, 
I, walking in the wood the morrow's dawn, 

Should marvel not that, by my feet and under, 
The wildflowers now were purer than those gone? 

The wood-birds' silver warble sunk completer ? 

The sun shone whiter, lordlier at noon ? 
And night, sweet God ! hung starrier, holier, 
sweeter, 

In Babylonian witchcraft of the moon ? . . . 



68 CONSECRA TION. 



All love hath emanations : an ideal 

Beats, beats within all beauty. I was moved 
No more when, dreamed, my spiritual dream rose 
real, 

Than by what virtue, God divined, I loved. 



POEMS OF NA TURK AND LOVE. 69 



ROMANTIC LOVE. 



S it not sweet to know ? — J 

The moon hath told me so — 



That in some lost romance, love, 
Long lost to us below, 
A knight with casque and lance, love, 
A thousand years ago, 
I kissed you from a trance, love, — 
The moon hath told me so. 



Or were it strange to wis ? — 
The stars have told me this — 
Once sang a nightingale, love. 
On some old isle of Greece ; 
A wizard loved its wail, love, 
That it might never cease. 
From the full notes a woman. 
More lovely than one human. 
Devised ... so goes the tale, love. 
The stars have told me this. 



ROMANTIC LOVE. 



Is it not quaint to tell? — 
The flowers remember well — 
Was once a rose that blew, love, 
Pale in a haunted dell ; 
And one, a Fairy true, love. 
By loving broke the spell ; 
And, lo ! the rose was — you, love 
The flowers remember well. 



IV. 



To moon and flower and star 
We are not what we are : 
Sometimes, from o'er that sea, love. 
Whose scolloped sands are far, — 
From shores of Destiny, love, — 
The winds that wing and war, 
Will waft a thought that glistens 
To Memory who listens, 
Reminding thee and me, love, 
We are not what we are. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



PASTORAL LOVE. 



T^HE pied pinks tilt in the wind that worries — 

Oh, the wind and the tan o' her cheek ! \ 

And the close sun sleeps on the rye nor hurries — \ 

And what shall a lover speak ? ' 

i 

The toad-flax flowers in flaxen hollows — \ 

Oh, the bloom and her yellow hair ! j 

And the greenwood brook a wood-way follows — 

And what will his heart declare ? i 

The gray trees stoop where the daylight sprinkles — 

Hey, the day and the light o' her eye ! 
And a gray bird pipes and a wild fall tinkles — 

And what may a maid reply ? ! 

j 

Hey, the hills when the evening settles ! j 

Oh, the Edens \vithin her eyes ! 

Say, the tryst 'mid the dropping petals ! \ 

Lo, the low replies ! . . . \ 

\ 

" Yes, when the west is a blur of roses " — i 

" But what o' the buds o' thy cheeks, my , 

dear?" — ; 

" Yes, when there 's rest and the twilight cl( ses" — \ 

" And the star of love is near." \ 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



ANDALIA. 



C ONG, that did waken you, 
Song that had taken you, 
Has not forsaken you ; 

Still with the spring 
My mad and merriest 
Part of the veriest 
Season and cheeriest : 
You, who can bring 
Airs that the birds have taught you ; 
Grace that the winds have brought you 
Looks that the lilies laughed you ; 
Thoughts that the high stars waft you— 
Are you a human thing ? 



Dreams — are you aught with them ? 
You, who are fraught with them ; 
You, like their thought, with them 

Beautiful too. 
Life — you 're a gleam of it ; 
Love — you 're a dream of it ; 
Hope — you 're a beam of it. 



AND ALIA. 



Bound in the blue 
Gray of big eyes that are often 
Laughter and languor ; that soften 
Over me sweetly and slowly 
Out of your soul that is holy, 

And purer than dew. 



Face, — like the sweetest of 
Perfumes, — completest of 
Flowers God's fleetest of 

Months ever bear. 
Sleep, who walk crisper, sleep. 
Than the frost ; lisper sleep, 
Have you a whisper, sleep, 
Soft as her hair ? 
Night and the stars did spin it ; 
Stars and the night are in it — 
Let but a ray of it bind me. 
And, should the blind fates blind me. 
Fair I should know her, fair. 



Love — has it mated you 
One that awaited you. 
One that was fated you 

Here for a while ? — 
Song, can you sing in me 



AND ALT A. 



Sweeter, or bring in me 
Peace, that will cling in me 
So through all trial, 
Such as her smiie ? like the morning's- 
Fashioning luminous warnings. 
Hints of a passion unspoken ; 
Love, 't is your seal and its token ! — 
The light of her smile. 



POEMS OF NA TV RE AND LOVE. 



NOERA. 

MOER A, when sad fall I 
■'• Has grayed the fallow ; 
Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl 

In pool and shallow ; i 

When sober wood-walks all j 

Strange shadows hallow : \ 

\ 

Noera, when gray gold ] 

And golden gray ' 

The crackling hollows fold \ 

By every way, J 

Thee shall these eyes behold , \ 

Dear bit of May ? j 

"When webs are cribs for dew, ' 

And gossamers, \ 

Long streaks of silver-blue ; \ 

When silence stirs \ 

One dead leaf's rusting hue \ 

Among the burs. i 

Noera, in the wood 1 

Or 'mid the grain, •] 



76 NO ERA. 



Thou, with the hoiden mood 

Of wind and rain 
Fresh in thy sunny blood, 

Sweetheart, again ! 

Noera, when the corn 

Reaped on the fields 
The aster's stars adorn — 

Their purple shields 
Defying the forlorn 

Decay fall wields : — 

Noera, haply then, 
Thou being with me, 

Each ruined greenwood glen 
Will bud and be 

Spring's with the spring again, 
The spring in thee. 

Thou of the breezy tread. 

Feet of the breeze ; 
Thou of the sunbeam head. 

Heart like a bee's ; 
Face like a woodland-bred 

Anemone's. 

So to October's death 
An April part 



NOERA . 



Bring, while she taketh breath 
Against death's dart ; 

Noera — one who hath 
Made mine a heart. 



Come with our golden year, 

Come as its gold : 
With thy same laughing, clear, 

Loved voice of old : 
In thy cool hair one dear 

Wild marigold. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AMD LOVE. 



PHYLLIS. 



I. 



TF I were her lover 

I 'd wade through the clover 
Over five fields or more ; 
Over the meadows 
To stand with the shadows, 
The shadows that circle her door, 
I 'd walk through the clover 

Close by her ; 
And over and over 

I 'd sigh her, 
" Your eyes are as brown 
Asa Night's looking down 
On waters that sleep 
With the moon in their deep " . 

If I were her lover to sigh her. 



II, 



If I were her lover 
I 'd wade through the clover 
Over five fields or more ; 
And deep in the thickets 
Or there by the pickets, 



PHYLLIS. 



White pickets that fence in her door, 
I 'd lean in the clover — 

The crisper 
For the dews that are over — 

And whisper, 
*' Your lips are as rare 
As the dewberries there, 
Half ripe and as red, 
On the honey-dew fed — " 

If I were her lover to whisper. 

III. 

If I were her lover 

I 'd wade through the clover 

Over five fields or more ; 

And watch in the twinkle 

Of stars that sprinkle 

The paradise over her door. 

And there in the clover 

I 'd reach her : 
And over and over 

I 'd teach her, 
A love without sighs. 
Of laughterful eyes. 
That reckoned each second 
The pause of a kiss, 
A kiss and . . . that is 

If I were her lover to teach her. 



POEMS OF NA TURK AND LOVE. 



CARMEN. 

J A GITANILLA ! tall dragoons 
'^ In Andalusian afternoons, 
With ogling eye and compliment 
Smiled on you, as along you went 
Some sleepy street of old Seville ; 
Twirled with a military skill 
Moustaches ; buttoned uniforms 
Of Spanish yellow bowed your charms. 



Proud, wicked head and hair blue-black, 
Whence the mantilla, half thrown back, 
Discovered shoulders and bold breast 
Bohemian brown : and you were dressed- 
In some short skirt of gypsy red 
Of smuggled stuff : your stockings, dead 
White silk, were worn with many a hole,. 
Through which your roguish ankles stole 
Sly hints of plumpness : dainty toes 
In red-morocco shoes with bows 
Of scarlet ribbons. Flirtingly 
You walked by me, and I did see 
Your oblique eyes, your sensuous lip. 
That gnawed the rose, you once did flip 



CARMEN. 



At bashful Jose's nose while loud : 

The gaunt guards laughed among the crowd. i 

And in your brazen chemise thrust, | 

Heaved with the swelling of your bust, \ 

A bunch of white acacia blooms 1 

Whiffed past my nostrils hot perfumes. ^^ 



As in a cool neveria 

I ate an ice with Merimee, 

Dark Carmencita, you passed gay 

And holiday bedizened : 

A new mantilla on your head ; 

A crimson dress bespangled fierce ; 

And crescent gold, hung in your ears, 

Shone wrought Morisco ; and each shoe, 

Of Cordovan leather, spangled blue, 

Glanced merriment ; and from large arms 

To well-turned ankles all your charms 

Blew flutterings and glitterings 

Of satin bands and beaded strings ; 

Around each arm's tight thigh, one fold, 

And graceful wrists, a twisted gold 

Coiled serpents, jewelled in the head 

With rubies of convulsive red. 



In flowers and trimmings, to the jar 
Of mandolin and gay guitar, 
You, in the grated patio, 
Danced : the curled coxcombs' staring row 
6 



CA RMEN. 



Gave pleased applause. I saw you dance, 

With wily motion and glad glance, 

Voluptuous, the wild ronialis, 

Where every movement was a kiss 

Of gracefulness, abandoned, wound 

In your Basque tambourine's dull sound. 

Or, as the ebon castanets 

Clucked out dry time in unctuous jets, 

Saw angry Jose through the grate 

Glare on us a pale face of hate. 

When some indecent colonel there 

Presumed too lewdly for his ear. 

Some still night in Seville : the street, 
Candilejo : two shadows meet — 
Flash sabres ; crossed within the moon, 
Clash rapidly — a dead dragoon. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 83 



SENORITA. 

A N" agate black, her roguish eyes 

Claim no proud lineage of the skies, 
No velvet blue ; but of sweet earth 
The reckless witchery and mirth. 

Looped in her raven hair's repose, 
A hot aroma, one tame rose 
Dies ; envious of that beauty where — 
By being near which — it is fair. 



Two lyrics set to song, her ears ; 
Whose unpretentious charm endears 
The jewels whose harmonious fire 
Binds the attention these inspire. 



Two stars stop o'er her balcony. 
Two eyes in heaven's canopy ; 
No moon flows up the satin night 
In pearl-pierced raiment spun of light. 

From orange-orchards, dark in dew. 
Vague, odorous hps the east-wind blew 



84 SE NO RITA , 



Or she, a new Angelica 

From Ariosto, breathed Cathay. 

Oh, stoop to me ! and speaking reach 
My soul like song, that learned low speech 
From some sad instrument, — who knows ?- 
Or flow'r, a dulcimer or rose. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 85 



AS IT IS. 



IV/I AN'S are the learnings of his books — 

What is all knowledge that he knows 
Beside the wit of winding brooks, 
The wisdom of the summer rose ! 



How soil distils the scent in flowers 
Baffles his science : heaven-dyed, 

How, from the palette of His hours, 
God gives them colors, hath defied. 



What broad religion of the light, i 

Ere stars in heaven beat burning tunes, a 

Stains all the hollow edge of night ' 

With glory as of molten moons. \ 



Why sorrow is more strange than mirth, 
And death than birth ; and afterward. 

What sweetness in the bitter earth 
Makes life's mortality so hard. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



THOUGHTS. 



OOW the May-apple or 

Silvery cyclamen — 
Star-perfect as a star — 

In woodland glade and glen 
Blossoms, when breezes woo 
With language of the dew, 
Up to the broken blue 
Of lonesome skies, do you 
Know or do I ? 



Can wild anemones 

Think ? — for they tremble so, 
Pale with the mysteries 

Of the wind's joy and woe : 
When the soft sunlight links 
Crowns, where the dewdrop winks, 
On every rose that shrinks, — 
What its heart's aura thinks 
Know you or I ? . . . 



THOUGHTS. 87 



Once when the Springtide trod 

By in a blowing blush, — 
Wise as a gaze of God 

Holding all Heaven a-hush, — 
Love was her thought ; and love 
Through the vast soul above 
Wrought so, these sprang thereof : 
Thought into thoughts, to prove 
Symbols of love. 



POEMS OF NA TURK AND LOVE. 



CHORDS. 



■\ A/HEN love delays, when love delays and joy 

Steals, a strange shadow, o'er the happy 
hills, 
And hope smiles from to-morrow, nor fulfils 
One promise of to-day, thy face would cloy 
My soul with loved despair 
By seeing thee so fair. 

When love delays, when love delays and song 
Aches at wild lips, regretful, as the sound 
Of a whole sea strives in the shell-mouth bound; 
Though hope smiles from to-morrow, all this wrong 
Would, at one little word. 
Leap forth for thee a sword. 

When love delays, when love delays and sleep 
Nests in dark eyeballs, like a song of home 
Heard 'mid familiar flowers o'er the foam, 
While hope smiles from to-morrow, thou wouldst 
steep 
This hurt heart overmuch 
In balm with one kind touch. 



CHORDS. 



When love delays, when love delays and sorrow 
Drinks her own tears that fever her soul's thirst, 
And song, and sleep, and memory seem accurst, 
While hope smiles from to-morrow, I would borrow 
One smile from thee to cheer 
The weary, weary year. 



When love delays, when love delays and death 
Hath sealed dim lips and mocked young eyes 

with night, 
To love or hate locked calm, indifferent quite, — 
Hope's star-eyed acolyte, — what kisses' breath. 
What joys can slay regret, 
Or teach thee to forget ! 



II. 



If thou wouldst know the Beautiful that breathes 

Consanguined with the Earth, go seek ! — but seek 
No sighing shadows with dead hemlock-wreaths ; 

No sleepy sorrows whose wan eyes are weak 
With vanished vigils, melancholy made, 
Forlorn in lands of sin and saddening shade ; 
No tearful angers torn of truthless love. 

That stab their own hearts to the dagger's hilt 
For vengeance sweet ; no miser moods that fade 
In owlet towers. Such it springs above. 

And buds on morning meads no flowers that wilt. 



CHORDS. 



If thou dost seek the Beautiful, beware ! 

Lest thou discover her, nor know 't is she ; 
And she enslave thee evermore, and there 

Reward thee with the kingliest beggary : 
Make thine the red rose of her cheek that stings ; 
The kiss-sweet odor, thine, her wild breath brings 
Make thine the broad bloom of her crowned brow 

The prisoned lights that jewel her dark eyes ; 
The melody — which is herself — that sings 
The poem of her presence ; and the vow 

That gods exalts and mortals deifies. 



Lone art thou then ; lone as the lone first star 

Kindling pale ardor o'er the dusk's gray wave ; 
Lost to all happiness save searching far 

Through lands of life where death hath dug thy 
grave : 
Lost — even as I — a devotee to her, 
Poor in world-blessedness her bliss to share, 
But rich in passion. — In her hermitage 

Hope no Arabian splendor, for it lies 
Mossy by wooded waters ; hidden where 
She, the pure priestess, wiser than what 's sage, 

'Shrines dreamers' hearts for godliest sacrifice. 



III. 

Now that the orchard's leaves are sear, 
And drip with rain instead of dew, 



CHORDS. 



No moonbright fruit hangs moonlike here 
And dead your long, white lilies too — 
And dead the heart that broke for you. 

How comes the dim touch of your arm ? 
Your faint lips on my feverish cheek ? 

Your eyes near mine? deep as a chaim, 
And gray, so gray ! — But I am weak, 
Weak with wild tears and can not speak. 

I am as one who walks with dreams ; 

Sees as in youth his father's home ; 
Hears from his native mountain streams 

Far music of continual foam, 

And one sweet voice that hails him home. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



IMPRESSIONS. 



/^N, towards the purlieus of impossible space, 
^"^^ From Death enamoured, Life capricious flies: 
Communicated sorrow of his face 
Freezing her ever backward burning eyes. 



Man's days are planted as a flower-bed 
With labor's lily and the rose of folly : 
Beneath grief's cypress, pale, uncomforted, 
The phantom fungus blooms of melancholy. 



With starry gold Night still endorses what 
Man's soul hath written, guessing at the skies : 
Day on Night's scribble drops a fiery blot, 
And thwart the writing scrawls " The lie of lies." 



And it may be that, seamed with iron scars, 
One in vast Hell shall lift fierce eyes above, 
And one, inviolate as God's high stars, 
Gaze from sad Heaven, alas ! and see, and love. 



IMPRESSIONS. 93 



Into her heart's young crucible Life threw 
Affliction first, then Faith, — by which is meant 
Hope and Humility ; — Love touched the two, 
And, lo ! the golden blessing of Content. 

6. 

As oft as Hope weighed coaxing on this arm, 
On that Despair dashed heavily his fist : 
He knew no way out of Grief's night and storm 
Until a child called Effort came and kissed. 



Some obscene drug in her dull draught Sleep gave, 
And, dead, I lived, to hear a man-faced beast 
Dig, dig with wolfish fingers in my grave, 
With horrible laughter to a horrible feast. 



Some few have pierced the phantom fogs, that veil 
Life's stormy seas, into futurity. 
And seen The Flying Dutchman's ominous sail, 
Portentous of dark things that are to be : 

Through hissing scud, mad mist, and roaring rain, 
On thundering seas, they see her drive and drive. 
Crowding wild canvas 'gainst the hurricane. 
Her demon ports with battle-lamps alive. 



IMPRESSIONS, 



9- 
POETRY. 



Who hath beheld the goddess face to face, 
Blind with her beauty, all his days shall go 
Climbing lone mountains towards her temple's place. 
Weighed with song's sweet, inexorable woe. 



lO. 

THE UNIMAGINATIVE. 



Each form of beauty 's but the new disguise 
Of thoughts more beautiful than forms can be 
Sceptics, who search with unanointed eyes, 
Never the Earth's wild fairy-dance shall see. 



II. 

MUSIC. 



God-born before the Sons of God, she hurled, 
With awful symphonies of flood and fire, 
God's name on rocking Chaos — world by world 
Flamed as the universe rolled from her lyre. 



12. 
THE THREE ELEMENTS. 



They come as couriers of Heaven : their feet 
Sonorous-sandaled with majestic awe ; 
With raiment of swift foam and wind and heat, 
Blowing the trumpets of God's wrath and law. 



IMPRESSIONS. 95 



13- 
DESTINY. 

Within the volume of the universe 
With worlds she writes irrevocable laws : 
From everlasting unto everlasting hers 
The evolutions of effect and cause. 

14. 

FAME. 

A mirror, brilliant as a beautiful star, 
She lifts and sings to her own loveliness : 
Not till her light and song have lured him far 
Does man behold the lie he did not guess. 

15. 

THE HOURS. 

With stars and dew and sunlight in your hair, 
Approach, O daughters of the Day ! who saith, 
" The gifts my children bring are Rest and Care, 
Of which the last is Life, the first is Death." 

16. 

DESPAIR. 

So sick at heart, so weary of the sun, 

In her sad halls my Soul sits desolate. 

Her Hope surrendered to Oblivion, 

Whose coal-black charger neighs beneath the gate. 



96 IMPRESSIONS. 



17. 
THE MISANTHROPE. 

Shut in with its own selfishness his soul 
Sees — as a screech-owl in a hovel might, 
Blinking avoided daylight through one hole — 
The white world blackened by its own dull sight. 

18. 

ROME. 

Above the Circus of the World she sat, 
Beautiful and base, a harlot crowned with pride : 
Fierce nations, upon whom she sneered and spat,- 
Shrieked at her feet and for her pastime died. 

19. 

THE HUN. 

On splendid infamies — a thousand years 
Heaven tolerated — like a Word that trod 
Incarnate of the Law, vast wrath and tears 
In pagan eyes, behold ! the Scourge of God. 

20. 

GREECE. 

The godlike sister of all lands she stands 
Before the World, to whom she gave her heart ,^ 
Still testifying with degenerate hands 
Her by-gone glory in enduring art. 



IMPRESSIONS. 



21. 
EGYPT. 

With ages weighed as with the pyramids 

And Karnac wrecks, still — out of Sphinx-like eyes 

Beneath the apathetic lotus-lids — 

With Memnon moan her granite heart defies. 



22. 



Night's raven o'er its portal and day's dove, 

Wild witch-lights haunt an old-world-sculptured 

tomb : 
Beside the corpse of beauty and of love 
Song's everlasting-lamp burns in the gloom. 

23. 

HAWTHORNE. 

Dim lands and dimmer walls, where magic slips 
A couch of velvet sleep beneath romance : 
Where speculation bends with longing lips 
Fearful to break the long-unbroken trance. 

24. 

EMERSON. 

Our New-World Chrysostom, whose golden tongue 
Through nature preached philosophy and truth : 
Wise intimate of loveliness he sung, 
Old, yet instructing with the lips of youth. 
7 



IMPRESSIONS. 



25- 
JAAFER THE VIZIER. 

Lutes, odorous torches, slaves and dancing girls 
In gardens by a moonlit waterside, 
And one whose wise lips scatter gold and pearls — 
Th' Arabian revels and the Barmecide. 

26. 

ON READING THE LIFE OF HAROUN ER RESHID. 

Down all the lanterned Bagdad of our youth 
He steals, with golden justice for the poor : 
Within his palace — you shall know the truth — 
A blood-smeared headsman hides behind each door. 



T 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



FRAGMENTS. 



HE curtains of my couch sway heavily 

Ere death divides the curtains of my soul.- 



Sleep, like a gray expression of ghost lips \ 

Heard through the moonlight of a haunted room, •, 

Glides unto me, while death stands near and leers. ' 



" Stay not too long, love, stay not long avi^ay ! ' 
Said not my heart so when we kissed farewell ? 
But now my heart is heavy with hard news 
Of love that stooped for one last, bitter kiss. 



3- 



Tear from my heart and under furious feet 
Trample the golden record of our love, 
Love's golden language, O despair, despair ! 



Night is a grave physician, who contrives 
The drug of sleep to heal day's bruises up, 



FRA GMENTS. 



The drug of death for life's delirium. — 

On lost expanses of a phantom land 

Night stands : one hand of jewelled darkness points 

Where, baleful beacons, burn two sinister stars, 

Mournful o'er shadows of lugubrious hills 

And lamentable tempest, and a shape 

Placid and pale and silent utterly. 



5. 

O undivulging, unresponsive shape, 

Is gold another name for power and crime ? 

Life, dust long dedicated unto death ? 

Death, darkness groping blindly towards a light ? 

Graven in gold do man's best deeds prevail, 

Steadfast as tablets of the eternal stars? 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



IDEAL DIVINATION. 

OOW I have thought of her, 

Her I have never seen ! — 
Now from a raying air 
She, like a romance queen, 
Flowers a face, serene, 
Radiant in raven hair. 

Now in a balsam scent 

Laughs from the stars that gleam 

Naked and redolent, 

Bends to me breasts of beam, 

Eyes that will make me dream. 

Throat that the dimples dent. 

Love is all vain to me 
So ; and as dust, severe 
Faith : and a barren tree, 
Truth : and a bitter tear. 
Joy : for I wait and hear 
Her who can never be. 

Living, we learn to know 
Life is not worth its pain ; 
Living, we find a woe 



IDEAL DIVINA TION. 



Under each joy we gain ; 
Fardled of hope we strain 
Whither no hope may know. 

Life is too credulous 
Of time that beckons on. 
Memory still serves us thus — 
Gauging the coming dawn 
By a day dead and gone, 
Day that 's a part of us. 

Soul — of life's sins so mocked, 
Cloyed in the flesh and held, 
Ever rebellion rocked, 
Battling, forever quelled, 
Yearning on heaven spelled 
Over of stars — lies locked 

Supine where torrents pour 
Hellward ; on crags that high. 
Scarred of the thunder, gore 
Heaven ; the vulture's eye 
Swims, and the harpies' cry 
Clangs through the ocean's roar. 

Notes of geolian light 
Calling it hears her lips : 
Scorched by her burning white 
Arms and her armored hips, 
Slimy each monster slips 
Back to its native night. — 



IDEAL DIVINA TION. 



Rules she some brighter star ? 
Inviolable queen 
Of what the destinies are ? 
She, with her light unseen 
Leading my life, a sheen 
Loftier than beauty far. 

Oh ! in my dreams she lies 
With me and fondles me ; 
Amaranths are her eyes ; 
And her hair, shadowy 
Curlings of scent ; and she 
Breathes at my heart and sighs. 

If with its slaves I bear 
All of life's tyranny, — 
Worm for the worm, — I care 
Naught if my spirit be 
Hers in eternity — 
Hers, who did make it dare. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



THE BEAUTIFUL. 



r\^ moires of placid glitter 

^""^ The moon is knitter, 

Under the jade-dark branches 

The blue night blanches ; 

Upon the torrent's arrow 

Gleams flash, as narrow 
As each blown tress of some pale sorceress, 
Spell-haunted, slumbering in a wilderness. 

O soul, who dreamest, ponder : — 

Thy witch, thy love, what wonder 
Of charms conceals her from thee powerless ? 

2. 

On mountain lakes of glimmer 

White sheets of shimmer 

Burn glassy, as if inner 

Sea-castles, — thinner 

Than peeled pearl-crystal curlings, — 

Through eddy-whirlings 
Sprayed glow of lucid battlement and spire. 
The smoldering silver of their smothered fire : 

And hers, thy love's enchanted ? 

Where are her towers planted ? — 
Heart ! that thou couldst besiege them with thy lyre ! 



THE BE A UTIFUL. 



By sands of ruffled beaches ? 

On terraced reaches 

Of rolling roses, blowing 

Mouths red as glowing 

Cheeks of the folk of Fairy ? 

A palace airy, 
With pointed casements, thrusts of piercing light, 
Piled full of melody and marble-white ? 

Where beauty, veiled and hidden, 

Smiles ? who my life hath bidden 
Come ? by her wisdom accoladed knight ? 



The blue night's sweetness settles — 

Like hyacinth petals 

Bowed by their weight of teary 

Dew — dayward. Weary 

One mocking-bird, moon-saddened, 

Sings on ; and gladdened, 

My soul, dissolving, largens to the lie 

Named Death by mortal lips. — Love, tell me why 
I may not, thy defender. 
Mix with thee ? feel thy splendor 

Expand me like a bud beneath God's eye? 



io6 POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



SLEEP. 

T OOK in my eyes !— Oh, the mild and mysterious 
Deeps of thine eyes that are holy with rest ! — 
Sigh to me ! yes, as thy cousin, imperious 
Love, might, with lips that are soft and delirious, 

Soft with such pureness as blesses the blessed. 
Fold all my soul in the mild and mysterious 
Might of thy rest. 

All the night for thy love, all the night ! while the 
gladdening 
Presence of dusk as a legend of old 
Speaks in me poesy : none of the saddening 
Prose of the day that is sad with the maddening 

Heart of unrest that is heartless and cold. 
All the night for thy love, all the night ! and its 
gladdening 

Beauty of old. 

Scorn is not thine, nor is hate ; but the bubbling 
Fountains of strength that are youthful as morn's : 

Hurt is not thine of remembrance ; the troubling 

Bruises of waking whose fingers keep doubling — 
Doubling on temples life's cares that are thorns. 

Thine are the hours of the stars and the bubbling 
Wells of the morns. 



SLEEP. 



Pride and the passions of greed that now worry us, 

Mix with and brutalize ; envy and spite 
At the heart, that 's an-ache with the tears that will 

hurry us 
On, with the iron of anguish, to bury us, — 

Touch them and calm with thy fingers of white. 
Make all these passions and pains, that now worry 
us. 

Night with the night. 

Thine are the mansions of slumber ; the flowery 
Fields of the visions that blossom the dreams : 

Thine, the high mountains of peace, that lie showery 

Under the stars : and the valleys of bowery. 
Balmy forgettings made misty with streams : 

Thine, the white halcyon mansions, the flowery 
Pastures of dreams. 



Stay for me. Stand by me. Stoop to me. Pray 
for me. 
Pray, O thou essence, the incense of prayer ! 
Mother of hope ! whose kind eyes are a-ray for me. 
Vestal with goodness, and fill all the day for me 

New with a vigor that masters despair. 
Stay for me. Be of me breath of me. Pray for me. 
Sister of Prayer ! 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



DISENCHANTMENT OF DEATH. 



OUSH ! she is dead. Tread gently as the Hght 

Steals in the weary room. Thou shalt behold. 
Look : — in death's ermine pomp of awful white, 

Pale passion of pulseless slumber, very cold, 
Her beautiful youth ! Proud as heroic might — 
Death ! and how death hath made this vastly 
old. 



Old earth she is now : energy, of birth 

Hath fledged glad wings and tried them sud- 
denly ; 
The eyes that held have freed their maiden mirth ; 

Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be. 
Shine, fixed in rarer jewels not of Earth, 

In Fairylands beyond some silent sea. 

A sod is this : whence, what were once those eyes, 
Will grow blue wild-flowers in what happy air ! 

Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise. 
Haply, what summer with her affluent hair ! 

What roses bask those cheeks ! and the wise skies 
Will know her dryad to what young oak there ! 



DISENCHANTMENT OF DEA TH. icg 

The chastity of death hath touched her so, 

No dreams of life may reach her in her rest ; — 

No dreams the heart exhausted here below, 
Sleep built within the romance of her breast. 

How she will sleep ! like music, breathing slow 
Through the dark germs, to golden life caressed. 

Low music, thin as winds that stir the grass, 

Smiting through red roots harpings ; and the sound 

Of Eltin revels when the deep dews glass 
Globes of concentric beauty on the ground ; 

For tepid clouds, through rainy nights that pass. 
The prayer in flowers that the stars have crowned. 

So, if she 's dead, believe she is not dead. 

Disturb her not ; she lies so lost in sleep. 
Its narrow house of care the soul hath fled. 

Her presence leans above us, and the deep 
Is yet unvoyaged ; and the hand, that led 

Her meek feet forward, stays her shouldst thou 
weep. 

To principles of passion and of pride, 

To trophied circumstance and specious law. 

Stale saws of life, with scorn now flung aside, 

From Mercy's throne and Truth's, wouldst thou 
withdraw 

Her, Hope in Hope, and Chastity's meek bride, 
In holiest Love of holy, without flaw? 



I lo DISENCHA NTMENT OF DEA TH. 

The anguish of the living, — merciless 

And bitter cruelty unto the grave, — 
Wrings the dear dead with more than grief's dis- 
tress, 

Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave. 
If thou hast sorrow, let thy sorrow bless 

The conqueror who leaves us less a slave. 

" Unjust" ? — He is not. Yea, hast thou not all. 
All that thou ever hadst when this dull clay, 

Thy long beloved, made the spiritual 

A restless vassal of Earth's night and day? 

This hath been thine and is : the cosmic call 
Hath but reclaimed its own and borne away. 

Thou unjust ! — Bar not from its high estate, — 
Won with what toil through devastating cares ! 

What bootless battling with the violent Fate ! 
What mailed endeavor with resistless years ! — 

The soul, Heaven granted thee as earthly mate ; 
Being only loaned, return it not with tears ! 



POEBIS OF NA TURE AND LOT E. 



THE THREE URGANDAS. 



/'^AST on sleep there came to me 
Three Urgandas from the sea 
Moaning out of Briogne : 
Cloudy-clad in awful white ; 
And each face, a lucid light, 
Rayed and blossomed out of night. 



In my sleep I saw them rest, 
Each a long hand at her breast, 
Like the half-moon in the west : 
Hair, like hoarded ingots, rolled 
Down their shoulders, burning cold, 
An insufferable gold. 

3. 

Rosy round each high brow bent 
Fourfold starry gold that sent 
Barbs of fire redolent : 
'Neath their burning crowns their eyes 
Shone like stormy stars the skies 
Rock in shattered storm that flies. 



THE THREE URGANDAS. 



Wisdom's eyes of lurid dark ; 
And each red mouth, like a spark, 
Flashed and laughed off care and cark : 
Mouths for song and lips to kiss ; 
Lips for hate and mouths to hiss ; 
Mouths that fashioned pain or bliss. 

5. 
Tall as stately virgins dead, 
Tapers lit at feet and head. 
Round whom Latin prayers are said : 
Or as vampire women who, 
Buried beauties, rise and woo 
Youths whose blood they suck like dew. — 

6. 

And the west one said to me : 
" Thou hast slept thus holily 
While seven sands ran secretly. 
Earth hath served thee like a slave, 
Serving us who found thee brave. 
Faithful in the life we gave : 

7. 
" Know ! " — She touched my brow ; a pain 
As of arrows pierced my brain ; 
Ceased ; and earth fell, some vast strain — 



THE THREE URGANDAS. 113 

And I understood all thought ; 

What life is, the spirit fraught ; 

Love and hate ; how worlds are wrought. 



And the east one said to me : 
'* Thou hast wandered wearily 
By what mist-enveloped sea ! 
Know the things thou hast not seen 
Life and law, and love and teen ; 
Things that be and have not been : 



9. 

" See !" — Her voice sobbed like a lyre, 
Comprehending all desire 
In its gamut's singing fire — 
Lifting inner eyelids, which 
Dimmed clairvoyance, with a twitch, 
All my soul with light was rich : 



10. 

And I saw the eyes of sleep ; 
Nerves of change that rule the deep 
Laws of entity that sweep 
Orbs and eons ; springs of power ; 
Circumstance, blown like a flower ; 
Time, the fragment of an hour. — 



THE THREE URGANDAS. 



'Neath the central third one's will, 

Balanced being that did thrill, 

All my soul lay very still, 

As she sternly stooped to me : — 

" Thou dost know, and thou canst see 

What thou art arise and be ! " 



12. 

To my mouth her lips she pressed ; 
And my naked soul, thrice blessed, 
Quaffed her radiance and caressed ; 
Mounted and vibrating fled ; 
Soared with her to them that said, 
" Thou dost live and thou art dead." 



POEMS OF NA TURK AND LOVE. 



THE LEGACY OF DEATH. 

"T^HE moonbeams on the hollies glow- 
Pale where she left me ; and the snow 
Lies bleak as moonshine on the graves, 
Ribbed with each gust that shakes and waves 
Ancestral cedars by her tomb. . , . 

She lay so beautiful in death, 

In death's dim loveliness, the gloom, 

The iciness that takes the breath, 

The sense of worms, were not too strong 

To keep me from beholding long. 

I stole into the mystery of 

Her old, armorial tomb ; and love 

Sighed all its romance to my heart. 

Soft indistinctness of pale lips 

Breathed on my hair ; faint finger-tips 

Fluttered their starlight on my brow ; 

Vague kisses touched my eyes, and now, 

Hard on my lips, an aching sense 

Of vampire winning. And I heard 

Her name slow-syllabled — a word 

Of haunting harmony — and then 

Low-whispered, " Thou ! at last, 'tis thou ! " 

And sighs of shadowy lips again. 



THE LEG A CY OF DEA TH. 



How madly strange that this should be ! 

For, had she loved me when of earth, 

It were not now so marvellous, 

So marvellous, remembering me 

With dead for living love, though worth 

Less, yes, far less to both of us. 

And so I wondered, listening there, 

" What deed of m.ine, or thought hath wrought 

This love from hate in after-life 

She giveth back ? " and everywhere 

Around my life I thought and thought 

And — nothing ; only, how my love 

Had still persisted 'neath her hate 

That made her Appolonio's wife. 

Her hate ! her lovely hate ! — for of 

Her naught I found unlovely — and 

I felt she did not understand 

My passion, so 't were well to wait. 

And now I felt her presence near, 
I full of life, yet had no fear 
There in the sombre silence, mark. 
And it was dark, yes, deadly dark ; 
But when I slowly drew away 
The pall, death modeled with her face, — 
From face and limbs it fell and lay 
Rich in the dust, — the shrouded place 
Was glittering daggered by the spark 
Of one wild ruby at her throat, 
Red-arrowed with star-heated throbs 



THE LEGA CY OF DEA TIT. 



That made it pulse. And note on note 
The darkness fought with tenuous sobs 
Of glimmering from out that stone, 
Lustrous and large against her throat 
As her large eyes when they could see ; 
And standing by the dead alone 
I wondered not that this should be. 

Red essence of an hundred stars 

In fretful crimson through and through 

Its bezels beat, when, bending down 

My hot lips kissed her mouth. And scars 

Of veiny scarlet and of blue, 

Flame-hearted, blurred the midnight, and 

The vault rang — and I felt a hand 

Like fire in mine. And, lo, a frown 

Broke up her face as gently as 

A breeze that jolts the ripening grass 

And spills its rain-drops. When this passed, 

Through .song-soft slumber binding fast, 

Slow smiles dreamed outward beautiful ; 

And with each smile I heard the dull 

Deep music of her heart and saw, 

As by some necromantic law. 

Faint tremblings of a lubric light 

Float through white temples and white throat ; 

And each long pulse was as a note, 

That gathering, like a strong surprise 

With all its happiness, again 

Left her arch lips one wistful smile 



THE LEGA CY OF DEA TH. 



That lingered languidly : yet pain 
Ached 'neath her eyelids, making sight 
Insufferable. . . . Yet those eyes 
Grew wide unto my kisses — yea, 
They \A'ere unsealed ! And all the fire 
Of that dark ruby at her throat, 
Arrow by arrow, into them smote ; 
And as some harmony entire 
Was she, but how, I can not say. 

And forth into the night I brought 

Her beautiful ; and o'er the sno-.v 

Where moonbeams on the hollies glow, 

I led her. But her feet no print, 

No lightest trace in frost, no dint 

Left of their nakedness. I thought, 

" The moonlight fills them with its glow 

And covers ; — and the tomb was black, 

Then this strong light — yes ! " turning back 

My eyes met hers ; and as I turned, 

Flashing centupled facets, burned 

That red gem at her throat ; and I 

Studied its beauty for a while : 

" How came it there, and when, and why? 

Who set it at her throat ? again, 

Why was it there ? " So pondering 

I questioned. And a far, strange smile 

Filled all her face, and secret pain 

Gave to her words a bitter ring : 

" Thou ! thou ! alas ! " she said and sighed ; 



THE LEG A CY OF DEA TH. 



" And if I am not dead, 't is thou ! 

See where thy heart's-blcod beateth now, 

Here ! " and she leaned unto me, eyed 

Like some wise serpent that hath still 

Lain all night on wild rocks to stare 

At labyrinthine stars until 

Its eyes have learned their golden glare. 

And then I took her by the wrists 
And drew her to me. Faintly felt 
The sorrow of her hair ; whose mists 
Fell twilight-deep and dimly smelt 
Still of the shroud and tomb. And she 
Smiled on me with such sorcery 
As well might win a soul from God 
To fiends and furies. And I trod 
On white enchantments and was long 
A song and harp-string to a song. 
Love's battle in my blood. And there 
Kissing her throat, her mouth, her hair, 
I stole the jewel from her throat 
With crafty fingers, to admire 
The witchcraft of its fevered fire : 
It, in the hollow of my hand, 
A rosy spasm seemed to float, 
A heart of anger fiercely fanned 
With red convulsions : like a brand 
I felt it scorch me ; felt it run 
Swift through my pulses like a sun 
Of torrid poison. And I marked 



THE LEG A CY OF DEA TH. 

My palm brim full with blood ; and slow 
Big drops drip beads of oozing glow, 
Like holly-berries, on the snow. 

Then all the night, contracting, darked 

Upon me and I heard a sigh 

So like a moan, 't was as if years 

Of anguish bore it : and the sky 

Swam near me as when seen through tears : 

And she was gone. ... In ghostly gloom 

Of dark, scarred pines a crumbling tomb 

Loomed like a mist. Carved in its stone 

Above the lintel, dim and deep, 

Glimmered the legend of her sleep : 

" Love crowned with death our lovely one. 

Our hearts bow by her side and weep. 

And one sits weeping all alone." 



POEMS OF NATURE AND LOVE. 121 i 



I. 

THE CAVERNS OF KAF. 

[Love Sensual.] 

"• Where am I?' cried he; ''what ate these 
dread/til rocks ? these valleys of darkness ? are we 
arrived at the horrible Kaf? ' " — Vathek. 



o 



NE Benreddin, I have heard, \ 



Near the town of Mosul sleeping, 
In a dream beheld a bird, 

Wonderful with plumes of sweeping 
Whiteness crowned pomegranate-red : 
Ever near him still it fled 
Brilliant as a blossom : keeping 
Near the Tigris, him it led. 

Following, Benreddin came 

To a haggard valley, shouldered 
Under peaks that had no name : 

Here it vanished : on the bouldered 
Savageness a woman, fair 
In a white simarre, rose there, 
Auburn-haired : around her smouldered 
Pensive lights of purple air. 



THE CA VERNS OF KAF. 



And she led liim down to vast 
Caves of sardonyx, each ceiling 

Domed vi^ith chrysoberyl : blast 
In blast of music, — stealing 

Out of aural glories,— n ears ; 

Rushing on his eager ears 

To recede in echoes, pealing 

Psalteries and dulcimers. 

Wildly sculptured slabs did weave 

Walls of story ; where, embattled, 
Warred Amshaspand and the Deev ; 

Over all two splendors rattled 
Arms of Heaven, arms of Hell ; 
Forms of flame that seemed to swell 
Godlike : Aherman who battled 
With Ormuzd he shall not quell. 

And Benreddin wondered till 

The reverberant music drifting 
Strong beyond his utmost will, 

Rolled him onward where, high lifting 
Pillar and entablature. 
Vast with emblem, yawned a door — 
Valves of liquid lightning shifting 
In and out and up and o'er. . . . 

Walls of serpentine deep-domed 
Green with agate and with beryl ; 

Tortuous diaper crusted foamed 
Rough with jewels : and, as peril 



THE CA VERNS OF KAF. 123 

Difficult, a colonnade 
Ran of satin-spar to fade 
Far in labyrinths of sterile 
Tiger-eye that, twisting, rayed. 

Dizzy stones of magic price 

Crammed volute and loaded corbel ; 
Iridescent shafts of ice 

Leapt : with long reechoed warble 
"Waters unto waters sang : 
Curling arc and column sprang 
Into fire as each marble 
Fountain flung its drift that rang. 

And around him, filled with sound, 

Surfs of resonant colors jetted : 
Sun-circumferences that wound 

Out of arcades, crescent-fretted, 
Mists of citron and of roon. 
Lemon lights that mocked the moon, 
Shot with scarlet, veined and netted, 
Beating golden hearts of tune. 

Discs of rose and lily-hue : 

Orbs of down-dilating splendor ; 

In whose centers slowly grew 

Spots like serpent eyes that, slender, 

Glared with undecided beams ; 

Burning through dissolving gleams. 

Hissed a trail of fire, tender 

As an houri's breath who dreams. 



THE CA VERNS OF KA F. 



Characters of Arabic, 

Cabalistic, red as coral, 
Through vague violet veils flashed quick, 

Changing ; as if fierce at quarrel 
Iran wrote of Turan there 
Hate and scorn, or everywhere 
Wrought swift talisman and moral 
Stern the Afrits dare not dare. 

Sounding splendors led him on 

To a crystal cavern ; hollow 
Hewn of alabaster wan, 

Lucid, whence his gaze could follow 
Far transparent flights in flights 
Rolling ; drowned in singing lights 
Glaucous gold ; he like a swallow 
O'er a lake the morning smites. 

Down the dome laughed out and in 

Sensuous faces of the Peris : 
Restless eyes of Deevs and Jinn 

In the walls M^atched : unseen faeries 
Out of rainbows rained and tossed 
Flowers of fire full of frost ; 
Blossoms where the fire varies 
And the smouldering scent is lost. 

Still below these, face to face, 

Seven odalisques of Heaven 
Swung within a silver space 

Flaming censers ; and the seven 



THE CA VERNS OF KAF. 



Crowned with stars of burning green, 
Mounted cloudy incense, seen, 
As it rose, to be a driven 
Hippogrif or rosmarine : 

Aloes, Nard and Ambergris, 

Sandal, Frankincense and Civet, — 

Riders of the fragrances, — 
Rein each wild aroma ; give it 

Spurs and race it down the lull 

Of the caverns, clouded dull 

With white steeds of musk they rivet 

Vaporous and beautiful. 

And Benreddin's passive soul. 

To hot eyes intoxicated. 
Ached ; and, drinking at the whole 

Fountain of fierce Passion, sated 
Drank unsatisfied. It saw 
Cheeks of light without a flaw, 
Breasts of bloom with breathings bated, 
Limbs translucent nearer draw. 

Houri eyes and wafted hair 

Brilliant blackness. Then a thunder 
Of hoarse music, that did bear 

Upward, organed in the under 
Caverns of the demon world. 
Koran scrolls of glisten curled 
Sparkling by him ; and a wonder 
Of coerulean mottoes swirled. 



THE CA VERNS OF KA F. 



Then one long note made of sighs. — 

A muezzin cry repeated, 
Dying downward. — Burning eyes, 

Melting from him, passion-heated. 
Then sad voices, far away, 
Choral, Then one rocking ray 
Angry flamed and angry fleeted 
From a violent red to gray. 

And, 't is told, this one was young. 

Young that morning. When the darting. 
Anguish-throated bulbuls sung, 

Through the silent starlight starting, 
One, a Baghdad merchant, led 
By the white light on its head, 
Found a hoary shadow. Parting 
Hair from face, Benreddin — dead. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



II. 
THE SPIRIT OF THE VAN. 

\^Love Ideal. \ 

''Among the mountains of Carmarthen, lies a 
beautiful and romantic piece of -water, named The 
Van Pools. Tradition relates, that after mid- 
night, on N'ew Year's Eve, there appears on this lake 
a being named The Spirit of the Van. She is 
dressed in a white robe, bound by a golden girdle ; 
her hair is long and golden, her face is pale and 
melancholy." — Fairy Mythology. 

IVAIDSUMMER-NIGHT ; the Van ; through 
night's wan noon, 

Wading the storm-scud of an eve of storm, 
Pale o'er Carmarthen's peaks the mounting moon. — 

Wilds of Carmarthen ! sullen heights that swarm 
Girdling lone waters — as gaunt wizards might 

Crouch guarding some enchanted gem of charm — 
Wilds of Carmarthen, that for me each night 

Reecho prayers and pleadings, — all the year 
Unanswered, made to listening waters, — white, 

The bitter white of Winter, and the clear 



128 THE SPIRIT OF THE VAN. 

Cool eyes of girlish Springtide, and the slow 
Sweet gaze of languid Summer, and the dear 

Dark eyes of tristful Autumn saw me so, 
Unhappy, lost among your moaning hills ! 

Should any ripple tremble into glow, 

When yeasty moonshine scuds the foam, there 
thrills 
Heart's expectation through glad veins and high 

With " She ! " each pulse the exultation fills. 
But she 't is never. Once . . . and then would I 

Had fall'n abolished so beholding ! . . . World, 
What sadder hast than beauty that must die? — 

Once I beheld her ! — if some fiend had curled 
Stiff talons through my hair, and, twisting tight, 

Scoffed, ' ' Burn and be ! " then into hell had hurled 
Me satisfied with beauty — beauty's white 

Bloom heavenizing hell — I, unamerced, 
Shackled with tortures, might have mocked hell's 
spite. 

Immortal memory of love, I thirst ! 
O starlike beauty that the memory wove. 

In that I love thee am I so accursed ? — 
Oh, maks me mad with love, with all thy love ! 

Who tell it to these wilds when midnights gloom 
Storms or drip gold from sibylline stars above : 

Let thy high favor all heaven's fires consume ! 
Quench with thy starry presence ! and make mad 

Me with sweet madness ! slay me with perfume t 



THE SPIRIT OF THE VAN. 



Sleep may I not now for all sleep is sad. ^ 

Cheated of thee, sad are all tearful dreams .- 

A shadowy sorrow haunts with what hath clad ; 

Day's tyrannous hope in life that only seems : 1 

And seeming hope forever needs must pine \ 

Seeking evasions that a:re form-fixed gleams. — J 

Though thou be wrought from elements divine, i 

And I crass earth exalted, which will think, \ 

" Since I am thine this makes me think thee \ 



mine, J 

Must I, its usual phantom, the still brink ■ 

Of thy lone lake bewilder nightly ? Yearn \ 

For that bright vision of a moment's wink ? \ 

When, glassing out great circles, which did urn 1 

Some intense essence of interior light, — \ 

As clouds, that clothe the moon, unbinding burn, j 

Riven, erupt her orb, triumphant white, — \ 

Middle the Van foam, churned to feathering fire, .' 

Dilated ivory-wan. Expectant night { 

Tip-toed attentive, fearful to suspire, \ 

When there uprose — what pure divinity ? ■ 

What goddess sensed with glory and desire ? ; 

One melancholy instant born to be — .; 

Love's ! and sunk back where burst a brassy '', 

black "'. 

O'er glittering waves that sighed with ecstasy. — '•: 
Thou ! in whose path harmonious hues bloomed 

back, \ 

Pale pearl and lilac, asphodel and rose, ■ 

Like many flowers blooming in thy track. \ 

9 1 



I30 THE SPIRIT OF THE VAN. 

And I alone ; to marvel as who knows 
He is not dead and yet it seems he is, 

Tranced but in body while the spirit glows. — 
O world-sweet face ! brow one white, angel kiss ! 

High immortality ! — To fancy such, 
Dance starlight in a lily's loveliness. — 

Waist-bound with moony gold, too base to clutch 
Her godlike chastity, though clear as gum 

That almugs sweat, and fragrance to the touch ! 
And hair — not hair ! gold rays, like those that come 

Strained through the bubble of a chrysolite. 
Curled quiverings of light that clung and clomb. 

Such left me such ; deep on my soul's quick sight 
Eternal seared ; my life — a stealing shade 

Avoiding day and ardent for the night : 
A raver to the hoary hills which laid 

Their dumb society in ruth on who 
Shunned all companionship of man and maid : 

Boon comrade of the mountain blossoms blue : 
Instructed intimate of trees, that they — 

"Wise as the legendary world that drew 
Oracles from lips in oaks — might haply say 

Prophetic precepts to him : how were won 
A spirit loved to love a mortal. — Yea, 

In vain ! 

Yet one day, log-like in the sun 
Beside a cave, — the mandrake vines made rank, 

And hairy henbane, where huge spiders spun, — 
Wrinkled as Magic, I a grizzled, lank, 



THE SPIRIT OF THE VAN. 



Squat something startled ; naught but skin and 
hair, 
With eyes wherein two demons brewed and drank 
Disputing dreams, which made them shrink or 
glare ; 
Familiars that, — beholding me drav/ near, — 

With frog-like lips croak'd at me. " Do and 
dare ! 
Woo her with thy heart's actions ; making clear 
Thy soul's white passage for her coming feet. 
Climb to her love and crawl ! Fear naught but 
fear ! " 

Thus have I done these many months. Repeat 
Acts of the heart with passionate offering 

Of love whose anguish makes it seven-times 
sweet. 
Still all in vain, in vain. Now I but bring 

My simple self to-night, unfearing, see ! 
Myself unto thee ! — Shall this clay still cling 

Clogging fulfillment ? thy love's mastery 
Be balked by flesh ? No ! let me plunge and fly 

Deep to thy mounted throne of majesty ! 
Gaze in thine eyes one splendid instant — die 

To epochs of the elements ! One kiss 
Of thine to give me immortality ! 

Part of thy breathing waves, that laugh and hiss 
With tides, — thy winds, — that rock the awful 
deeps. 

Or build with song vast temples for thy bliss : 



132 THE SPIRIT OF THE VAN. 

To thrill responsive as thy white hand sweeps 
The chords of some sad shell, and dream and 
roam 
Through glaucous chambers where the green day 
sleeps ! 
Dead not with death ! — 



What secrets hath thy home 
Not mine then, storied in exultant foam ? — 
Deeper, down deeper ! yea, behold, I come ! 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 133 : 

1 
I 

III. 

THE SPIRIT OF THE STAR. 

\Love spiritual. ^ 

" This union of the human soul with the 
divine ethereal substance of the universe, is the i 

ancient doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato : but it j 

seems to exclude any personal or conscious immor- 
tality." — Divine Legation. -i 

HTHERE is love for love : the heaven | 

Teems with possibilities : \ 

Earth hath such as heaven hath given \ 

Earth and all her sister seas. i 

Heaven and earth and sea is gladder \ 

For it ; only man is sadder, \ 

Waxing wise in night for driven \ 

Drift of light he never sees. '; 

•] 

There are lives for lives ; and beauty 1 

Born for beauty on the earth ; 1 

Faith for faith's immortal booty i 

Ris'n to some celestial worth : ' 



THE SPIRIT OF THE STAR. 



Song for every song ; unfolding 
Hope for dying hope ; a holding 
Duty towards aspiring duty, 
Godly as the laws of birth. 

Earth and ocean are prolific 
Of God's wonders as our sky ; 

With wild shapes of fair, terrific. 
Who, if loved, shall never die : 

Daemons rugged as their mountains ; 

Spirits sunny as their fountains ; 

Sylphids of the wind, pacific 

As the stars they tremble by . . . 

I was lonely ; long had waited 
For the sweet, eternal sleep ; 

Watching where the worlds dilated, 
Waned or wasted in the deep : 

Where beneath my star a planet 

Whirled and shone like glowing granite, 

While around it ne'er abated 
Orbs of fire in their sweep. 

I was sad ; the silence wilted 

Round me like a scentless bud 
Fading ere it blows. The quilted 

Clouds, like bursts of rushing blood 
Streamed beneath me. And the starry 
Blue serene above arched, barry 
With the golden stars, that filled it 
With their lofty sisterhood. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE STAR. 



I was loveless with a yearning 

After love that never came ; 
All my astral passion burning 

Outward ; to no blushing shame 
Immolated ; but a splendor 
Of intention that was tender 
To compulsion ; all returning 

On my heart with fiercer flame. 

So I left the stars whose lances 

Shook their arrowy gold in heat 
Of hard hyacinth ; the glances 
Of their million moony feet 
Ranged about me leaving. Beating 
Downward, left them still repeating 
Far farewells ; and through the trances 
Of dark space their eyes looked sweet. 

Passed your moon : saw melancholy 

Alabaster summits sharp ; 
Cataracts of crystal volley 

Over silver crag and scarp : 
On the mountains, — like a story 
Of high Heaven revealed in glory, — 
Growing as if music slowly 

Built it, rolling from a harp, — 

Rose a city : cloudy nacre 

Were its walls, that towered round 
Acre upon arching acre 

Of a marble-terraced ground : 



136 THE SPIRIT OF THE STAR. 

Caryatids alternated 
With Atlantes sculpture-weighted ; 
And its gates — some god the maker — 
Valves of symboled diamond. 

In the pure light glittered swimming 
Domes of dazzle ; swirl on swirl, 

Columned temples bubbled brimming 
Roofs of daedal-emblemed curl ; 

Galleries of moonstone darkled ; 

Palaces, whose pillars sparkled 

Misty opal ; and, far dimming, 
Aqueducts of ghostly pearl. 

I beheld it and descended 

Earthward. For the longing drew 
Me, and drawing me was blended 

With a world I never knew. 
And, did every star forsake me, 
I had answered what did take me 
Earthward, where it swung its splendid 

Sphere along the rocking blue. 

And when night came, lo, above you. 

Sleeping by your folded sheep, 
O'er the hills I rose. To love you 

Came, and kissed you in your sleep. 
And the destinies had wrought it 
So you knew me. You, who thought it 
Not so strange that I should love you, 
I a spirit of the deep. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE STAR. 



Ah, you knew how she had found you 

Sometime in some life not sad ; 
Won your soul to hers and bound you 

With chaste kisses that were glad : — 
Men forget, but we remember ! — 
And the love, that made an ember 
Of your soul once, falls around you — 
And your nakedness is clad. 

Being Beauty's now, — one petal 

Of its passion-flower, — far 
Past Earth's ignorance — a metal, 

Rusted, that reflects no star — 
Live beyond men lest they shame you ! 
Lest their shame, not I, should blame you ! 
Dream ! and when the shadows settle, 

Be the dream you dream you are ! 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



LYANNA. 

" These elementary beings^ we are told, were by 
their constitution more long-lived than man, but 
with this essential disadvantage, that at death they 
wholly ceased to exist. In the 7neantime they were 
inspired with an earnest desire for immortality ; 
and there was one way left for them, by which this 
desire might be gratified. If they zvere so happy as 
to awaken in any of the initiated a passion the end 
of rvhich was marriage, then the sylph became im- 
mortal." — Lives of the Necromancers. 

HTHE Summer came over the southern ocean 

Girdled with fire, tiaraed with light ; 
Laughter her eyes and her lips — a potion 

To quaff with kisses and know its might : 
A shadow that sparkled and flashed ; a motion 

Blushed from the uttermost south, and I, 
Of the race of the Sylphs, far over the ocean 
Followed her up the sky. 

An exile I to the mists that cluster. 

Pulsing with pearl and braided with blue. 

Large, luminous domes where the organs bluster 
Low of the winds ; where my brother-crew, 



LYANNA. 139 



When the day dreams up, in their bright bands 
muster, 
Ranges of glitter through cloudy gold, 
At the gates of the Dawn, whose limbs are lustre, 
To wait till her gates unfold. 

For the Summer murmured me, " Follow ! follow ! " 
Whispered, and promising whispered, " Love ! " — 

Winged with the wings of the sweeping swallow, 
I followed the wings of the drifting dove : 

** Love, and a mortal," and fain did I follow ; 
" Love, and immortal," my flight was strong ; 

" Life ! " and my life seemed vain and hollow ; 
" Love ! " and my heart was song. 

Fleet as the winds are fleet, yea, and fleeter 
Far than the stars, that throbbed like foam 

Through the billowy blue, in musical meter 
Winnowed our wings ; and the golden gloam 

Rang ; and life was a passion, completer 
Than Edens of flowers ; and faith, a lyre 

That sang at the heart to make hope sweeter. 
And hope, a leaping fire. 



So to the north our wings went maying 
Resonant ways, till a castle shone 

Gaunt on great cliffs, and the late skies graying 
O'er walls of \\?.x and o'er towers of stone. 



L YA NNA . 



A fall of steps to the sea where, spraying, 

Thundered the breakers ; and terrace and stair, 
Rock o'er the waters, rose rosy and raying 
Deep in the sunset glare. 

A dewdrop burns when the dawn lights prickle : 

All of my being tingled with light, 
Blossomed against her tarrying, fickle 

White on the terraced height : 
Beauty that stood like a moon in sickle, — 

A slender moon that the winds bleach bleak, 
With its hue like honeys that drip and trickle 
From combs whose wax is weak. — 

In dreams I came to her, lo ! as a vision : 
Yea, in her sleep as a dream was wound : 

Of her vestal chastity held : a prison 

Her innermost spirit that took and bound. 

And her rest I stole ; for sleep in derision 
Mocked at my hope for a love that slept : 

So her soul I awakened ; lo ! it had risen, 

And answered my soul and wept. 

" Lyanna, I hoop thee with arms of fire ! " — 
My voice was a hand of music that wrote, — 

" Lyanna, my life is a single wire, 
Thy love is its single note. 

Hast thou known me thus ? Shall it sound entire, 
Full as the angels' who hover and harp 

To the glory that 's God, like one golden lyre 

Borne in a beam that is sharp ? . . 



LYANNA. 



" Gladdened a splendor of rose, a splendor 

Out of the East : and the ruby bloom 
Hiding — what, love ? Two eyes that are tender ? 

Two lips that are flame, and limbs of perfume 
And fragrant fire ? — And who was the sender 

To thee of this lover ? " . . . And, bending 
low, 
Spiritual my speech as a flower that, slender, 
Blooms when the wild stars blow. 

Seemed all her passionate pulses to quicken ; 
Flowed all her soul to her eyes ; but sleep 
Shadowed her voice ; and her voice seemed to 
thicken 
With sorrow that longed to weep : 
" Yea, 1 divined thee, yea, and was stricken. 

Morn was my messenger-dove of love. 
Alas ! I divined ; and I seemed to sicken. 
To perish and pine thereof. 

" White are the clouds ; but I knew thee whiter 

In dazzling domes of the Dawn : I knew. 
Though bright are God's stars, that thine eyes were 
brighter, 
Brighter and burning blue. 
And my love was thine ; though it held thee 
slighter 
Than breezes bruiting it, murmuring by ; 
And waited and yearned, and the yearning tighter 
Than tears in the hearts that die. 



LVANNA. 



" ' Lyanna ! Lyanna ! ' thou calledst ever: 
' Lyanna I ' a ripple of rays that came : 

* Lyanna, thy name is like song forever ! ' 
And I marveled at my name. 

The voice was such as if stars should sever 
For utt'rance of silver-syllabled beams : 

' Lyanna ' Lyanna ! ' I turned, but never 

Informed thee more than my dreams. 

" Thou walkedst a beauty afar : a glitter 
Of gleaming aroma : and I with moan 

Flung thee mine arms : and thy gaze was bitter, 
Calmer and sterner than stone : 

Avoiding thou passedst in scorn . . . oh, fitter 
The hate of all Heaven for me than this. 

Thy scorn ! — and I wept, when, oh, a flitter 

Of fire, a laugh, and a kiss ! " . . . 

I had won her love. And the lungs of the thunder 
Trumpeted tempest ; and dark the seas 

Lunged at the walls like a roaring wonder ; 
And the black rain buzzed like bees. — 

Lyanna my bride. And the heavens asunder 
Rushed — chasms of glaring storm, where ran 

The thunder's cataracts rolling under — 

For, behold ! her race v.-as man. 

Mine, of the elements. At the moth-white portal 
Of dreams stood the soul with her name. I saw 

The glory and said, " Of the utterly mortal 
Mine the eternal lot and law ! — 



LYANNA. 



Thou lovest me ? " — " Yea ! dost thou question ? "- 
" Immortal 
Am I through thy love, O Lyanna ! " . . 
'T is said, 
Behold, when they came in the morn, a-startle 

Were lips with " Lyanna is dead ! " , 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



MASKS. 



Cuctillus non f licit ?nonachuin. 

T IVE it down ! as you have spoken. 

You could live it ere you knew 
What love was — " a bauble broken 
Of a foolish thing untrue." — 
You, Viola, with your beauty, 
Cloistered, die a nun ? No ; you — 
You must live, and 't is your duty. 

There 's your poniard ; for the second 
In this tazza dropped ; the blood 
On it scarcely hard. I reckoned 
Happily that hour we stood 
There upon your palace stairway. 
How, with the Franciscan hood 
Cowled, I said, there was a bare way. 

In the minster there I found it — 
Your revenge. I saw him wild 
Stalking to the church ; around it 
Dogged him, marking how he smiled 
In the moonlight where he waited. 
When the great clock beating dialed 
Ten, I knew he would be mated. 



MASKS. 145 



Heaven or my better devil ! — 
Hardly had his sword and plume 
Vanished in the dark, than, level 
On the long lagune, did loom 
Into moonlight-woven arches 
Her slim gondola ; all gloom ; 
One tall gondolier ; no torches. 

Dusky gondolas kept bringing 

Revellers ; and far the night 

Rang with merriment and singing. — 

From the imbricated light 

Of the oar-vibrating water. 

Gliding up the stairway, white, 

Velvet-masked — the count's own daughter. 

Quickly met her : whispered, "Flora, 

Gaston. — Alia, till they go 

One brief moment here, Siora." 

She '11 perceive us — she below 

With the duchess diamonds sparkling 

Round th' inviolable glow 

Of her throat — must pass us darkling : 

" She 's Viola ! " . , . And I drew her 

In the old neglected pile — 

Under her black mask I knew her. 

By the chin, the lips, the smile. 

Through the marble-foliated 

Window fell the moonrays. While 

All the maskers passed we waited. 



MASKS. 



I had drawn the dagger. Turning 
Called her by her name. Some lie 
Of a passion sighed, her burning 
Cheek on mine when, gliding by 
In the light Ms form bejewelled 
Gleamed. My very blood burned dry 
With the hate his presence fueled. 

My revenge : up-pushing slightly 
Cowl, the mask fell and revealed 
Balka as the poniard whitely 
Flashed. The hollow nave re-pealed 
One long shriek but once repeated. 
Yet, I stabbed her thrice. She reeled 
Dead. I thought of you, the heated 

Horror on my hands, and tarried 

Like the silence. Drawn aside 

On her face the mask hung, married 

To its camphor pallor : wide 

Eyes with terror-stone. One second 

I regretted, then defied 

All remorse. Your promise beckoned. 

And I left her. Love had pointed 

Me this way. I walked the way 

Clear-eyed and ... it has anointed 

Us fast lovers ? will you say 

Yes ? or in despair go nun it 

For this man who scorned you ? — Nay ! — 

Live to hate him, you 've begun it. 



POEMS OF NA TURK AND LOVE. 147 



THE SUCCUBA. 



T HAVE dreams where I believe 

I am prince of some dim palace ; 
One, at morn my Genevieve, 

Is at night the Lady Alice 
Long, long dead, who was my bride : 
And she glowers at my side 

Paly as a crystal chalice 
Filled with fire diamond-dyed. 



I have dreams and I shall die 

Wondering on them. I remember 

In my sleep her icy eye 

Draws me with its mournful ember 

Up a castle's stairs that pave 

Alabaster to the wave, 

Ghostly in the gray November ; 

And my soul is all her slave. 



Walls of shadow and of night 
Slit with casements full of fire, 

Ruby or a piercing white : 
As the wind breathes lower, higher. 



148 THE SUCCUBA. 



Round the towers spirit things 
Whisper, and a moaning sings 

In the strings of each huge lyre 
Set upon its four chief wings. 

In its corridors at tryst 

Flame-eyed phantoms meet. Its sparry 
Halls are misty amethyst, 

Battlemented 'neath the starry 
Skies of death that none has known ; 
Heavens with the green stars sown 

Low and large, and all their barry 
Beams blown on an ocean lone. 

Can it be a witch is she 

Or a vampire, who is whiter 
Than the spirits of the sea ? 

For my dreams inform her brighter 
Than the faint foam-blossoms. Lo, 
All this passion is my foe ! 

For her love lies tighter, tighter 
On my heart than utter woe. 

I but vaguely know I live 

Two pale lives of sweetest sorrow, 
Where my love must give and give 

Passion, that its soul must borrow 
Of the living, to the dead, 
To the dear unhallowed : 

And should I be death's to-morrow, 
If I knew, I could not dread. 



THE SUCCUBA. 



Lo, my dreams have drowned that place 
In all moon-white flowers : lilies 

Like the influence of a face ; 
Knots of pearly amaryllis ; 

Cactus-bulks with pulpy blooms 

Puffy in the silver glooms ; 

White each hill with daflfadillies 

O'er the olive ocean looms. 

But to me their fragrance seems 
Poison ; and their lambent lustre, 

Spun of twilight and of dreams, 
Poison ; and each frosty cluster 

Hides a serpent's fang, and I 

Looking from an oriel, sigh ; 

For my soul doth ache to muster 

Heart to breathe of them and die. 

Then I feel big eyes as bright 
As the sea-stars. Gray with glitter 

Glides unto me, clad in white, 

She. Deep hangings sway and flitter 

Loves and deeds of Amadis 

Darkly worked. And, lo, this is 

She the night brings, sweet and bitter 

With a bliss that is not bliss. 

And I kiss her eyes and hair ; 

Smooth her tresses till their golden 
Glimmer sparkles. Everywhere 

Shapes of strange aromas, holden 



[50 THE SUCCUBA. 



Of her halls, about us troop 
Foggy forms, that float and stoop, 
On slow swells of rolling, olden 
Music, odorous loop in loop. 

Still I see beneath it all — 

All this sorcery — a devil, 
Beautiful and grandly tall, 

Broods with shadowy eyes of evil : 
And I know, each lilac morn. 
In that land a cactus-thorn. 

Monstrous on some lonely level, 
Blooms for her I may not scorn. . . 

I have dreams where I believe 
I am prince of some dim palace ; 

One, at morn my Genevieve, 
Is at night the Lady Alice 

Long, long dead. — Who may be brave, 

Held and haunted of the grave ? 
When through some unholy malice 

One a prince is and a slave. 



POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



BLODEUWEDD. 



IVTOT to that demon's son, whom Arthur erst, 

For prophecy, at old Caerlleon durst 
Grace wisely, Merlin, — not to him alone 
Did those lost learnings of high magic, done 
With mystery and marvels, then belong : 
Taliesin, now, hath told us in a song 
Of one at Arvon, Math of Gwynedd ; lord 
Of some vague cantrevs of the North ; whose sword 
Beat back and slew the monarch of the South 
Through puissance of Gwydion. 

His mouth 
Was wise with wondrous witchcraft ; for his word 
Wrought the invisible visible and stirred 
Eyes with a seeming sight that, so deceived, 
The mind conceited shapes and shapes believed : 
Wrought flesh creations from air elements, 
For, let him wish, the winds were wan with tents. 
And brassy blasts of war from bugles brayed. 
And armored hosts of battle clanged and swayed, 
And at a word were not. With little care 
Steeds, rich-accoutred, and pied hounds, as fair, 
Limber, and wiry as the dogs of Earth, 
Fashioned from forest fungus, and gave birth 



BLODEUWEDD. 



To lives of twice twelve hours, wherein they moved 
Existences, and form perfections proved. 

Now, to Caer Dathyl, Math through Gwydion, — 
The son of Don, — the daughter dark of Don, 
The silver-circled Arianrod, had brought : — 
A southern rose of beauty, friendship sought 
For full espousal. When the maiden came 
Said Math, '* Art thou a virgin ?" like a flame, 
Mantling, her answer angered, "Verily, 
I know not other, lord, than that I be ! " 
So wrought he then through magic that the form 
Of her boy baby seemed upon her arm, 
A chubby child. 

" A Mary ? — Yea," laughed Math, 
" Forsooth, another Mary ! " then in wrath 
Set harsh hands on the babe and fiercely flung 
Far in the salt sea. But the hard winds clung 
Fast to the Elfin and the lithe waves swept 
Him safely shoreward dry. Some fishers kept 
Him thus unseaed and christened Dylan, fair 
Son of the Wave, and fostered him with care. 

Nor really was this hers. But Gwydion, 
Brother to Arianrod, before the sun 
Had time to touch it with one golden glaive. 
Some dim small body on the castle pave 
In raven velvet seized ; and, hiding, he 



BLODEUWEDD. 



Stole this from court, to subtly raise to be 
A comely youth. In time to Arianrod 
Brought, swearing by the rood and blood of God 
This was his sister's son. 



Quoth she : ' ' More shame 
Dost thou disgrace thee with to mix our name 
With this dishonor, brother, than myself ! " 
And, waxing wroth, cried Gwydion, " The Elf 
Is thine ? God's curse ! " and daggered her with 

looks. 
And she in turn waxed fiery saying, " Books 
Of wisdom I have read as well as thou ! 
And, yea, upon thy folly, listen, now 
I lay a threefold destiny : The first — 
Until I name him, nameless is he ! — Cursed 
Be they who give him arms with palsy ! nor 
Shall he bear such until I arm for war. 
And, lastly, know, however high his birth, 
He shall not wed a woman of the Earth ! — 
Malignity ! to shame me with thy sin ! " 
So passed into her tower and locked her in. 

But Gwydion, departing with the youth, 

Sware he would compass her ; if not through truth, 

Through wiles of learned magic. And he wrought 

So that unbending Arianrod was brought 

To name the lad. Again he managed that. 

Through fierce enchantments as of war, he gat 



154 BLODEUWEDD. 

Her to give arms. But then, not for his life, 
Howbeit, could he get the youth a wife. 
Persisting desperate, anon the thing 
Wrought in him blusterous as a backward spring. 

Now Llew the youth was named. And Gwydion 
Made his complaint to Math, the mighty son 
Of Mathonwy. 

Said he : " Despair not. We 
By charms, illusions, and white sorcery 
Will seek to make — for have we not such powers ? 
— A woman for him out of forest flowers." 

And so they toiled together one wan night. 

When the gray moon hung low and watched,^ a 

white, 
Wild witch's face behind a mist. They took 
Blossoms of briers by a bloomy brook 
Shed from the April hills ; and phantom blooms 
Of yellow broom that filtered faint perfumes ; 
Thin, rare, frail primroses of rainy smell. 
Weak pink, cirque-clustered in a glow-worm dell ; 
Wild-apple sprigs that tipsied bells of blaze 
And in far, haunted hollows made a haze 
Of ghostly, fugitive fragrance ; plaintive blue 
Of hollow harebells hoary with the dew ; 
Kingcups as golden as the large, low stars ; 
And lilies which, rolled limpid in long bars 
Like sleepy starshine, swayed aslant and spilled 
Slim nectar-cups of musk the rain had filled ; 



BLODEUWEDD. 



And paly, wildwood windflowers, slight of gloss, 
Dotting the oak-roots bulging up the moss ; 
Lone on the Elfin uplands pulled the buds, 
That burn like spurts of moonlight when it suds 
The rainy clouds, of blossomed meadow-sweet, 
And made a woman tall, from crown to feet 
Complete in beauty. One far lovelier 
Than Branwen, daughter of the gray King Llyr 
Than that dark daughter of Leodegrance, 
The stately Gwenhevar. And old romance 
Dreamed in the open Bibles of her eyes ; 
Music her motion ; and her speech, soft sighs 
Of an acknowledged love for love again ; 
And in her face no least suggested pain, 
But hope, high heart, and happiness of life. 

So Blodeuwedd they named her and as wife — 
Fair aspect of wild flowers baptized with dew — 
Gave that next morning to the happy Llew. 



156 POEMS OF NA TURE AND LOVE. 



ACCOLON OF GAUL. 



Prelude. 



/^ WISEST legend fi'om the storied wells 

Of lost Baranton I where old Merlin dwells. 
Nodding a white poll and a grave., gray beard. 
As if some Lake Lady e he, listening, heard. 
Who spake like water, danced like careful showers 
With blown gold curls throtigh drifts of wild-thorn 

flowers ; 
Loose, lazy arms upon her bosom crossed, 
Float flower-like down a woodland vista ; lost 
With one peculiar note that wrings a tear 
Slow down his withered cheek. And then steals 

near 
A sweet, lascivious brotv s white wonderment. 
And gray , rude eyes, and hair which hath the scent 
Of the wildwood Brecelia nd's perfu m es 
In Brittany ; and in it one red bloom' s 
Blood-drop thrust deep ; and so " Sweet Viviane t" 
All the glad leaves lisp like a glad spring rain 
From top to top, until a running surge 
The dark witch-haunted solitude will urge, 



A C COLON OF GA UL. 



That shakes and sounds and stammers as from 

sleep 
Some giant were arottsed ; and with a leap 
A samite-hazy creatnre^ blossom-zvhite. 
Showers ^nocking kisses down and, like a light 
Beat by a gust to flutter and then done. 
From Alerlin and Breceliaride she 's gone. 
But still he sits there drowsing with his dreams, 
A wondrous compatty j as many as gleams 
That stab the moted mazes of a beech ; 
And each grave dream hath its own magic speech 
To sting his old, sad eyes to tears — and two 
Hang, tangled brilliants, in his beard like dew : 
And far-off jmirmtirs of courts brave and fair. 
And forms of Arthur, stately Guenevere, 
Tall Tristram and rare Isoud and stout Mark, 
Bold Launcelot, chaste Galahad the dark 
Of his weak mind, once strong, glares up with ; 

then, — 
The instant' s fostered blossoms — die again. 
A roar of tournaments , a rippling stir 
Of silken lists that ramble in to her. 
That ivhite, witch-mothered beauty, Viviane, 
The vast Breceliande and dreams again. 
Then Dagonet, King Arthur s fool, stands there, 
A ivaggish cunning ; glittering on his hair 
A tinsel crown ; and then will slowly sway 
Thick leaves and part, and there Morgane the Fay, 
With haughty wicked eyes and lovely face. 
Studies him steady for a little space. 



1 58 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

I. 

ACCOLON. 

'T'HOU speakest with thy questioning eyes again ; 
Here where the restless forest hears the main 
Toss in a troubled sleep and moan and beat 
A pensive passion out that \voods repeat. 

MORGANE. 

And what wild beauty here ! where roughly run 

Long forest shadows from the sinking sun, 

The wood 's a subdued power gentle as 

The tame wild-things that, in the moss and grass, 

Gaze with their human eyes. Here grow the lines 

Of pale-starred green ; and where the fountain 

shines, 
Urned in its tremulous ferns, let 's rest upon 
This oak-trunk by the tempest overthrown 
Years, years agone ; not where 't is rotted brown 
But where the thick bark 's firm and overgrown 
Of trailing ivy blackly berried ; where 
Moist musk of wood decay just tincts the air, 
As if a strange shrub on a whispering way, 
In some wet dell, while dreaming of one May, 
In longing languor weakly tried to wake 
One sometime blossom and could only make 
Ghosts of such dead aromas as it knew, 
And shape a spectre, fragrant as thin dew, 
To haunt these sounding miles of solitude. 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



Troubled thou speakest, Morgane, and the mood, 

Unfathomed in thine eyes, glows ; rash and deep 

As that in some wild woman's, — found asleep 

By some lost knight upon a precipice, — 

Whom he hath wakened with a laughing kiss. 

As that of some frail elfin lady, light 

As are the foggy moonbeams ; filmy white ; 

Who waves diaphanous beauty on a cliff 

That, drowsing, purrs with moon-drenched pines 

but if 
The lone knight follow, foul fiends rise and drag 
Him crashing down, while she, tall on the crag, 
Triumphant, mocks him with glad sorcery 
Till all the wildwood echoes shout with glee. — 
As that bewildering mystery of a tarn, 
A mountain water, which the mornings scorn 
To anadem with fire and leave gray ; 
To which a champion cometh when the Day 
Hath tired of breding for the Twilight's head 
Flame-flurry blooms, and golden-chapleted, 
Sits rosy, trembling with fierce love for Night, 
Who cometh sandaled ; dark in crape ; the light 
Of her good eyes a marvel ; her vast hair 
Tortuous with stars, — as in a shadowy lair 
The eyes of hunted wild things burn with rage, — 
And on her bosom doth his love assuage : 
He, coming heated to that haunted place. 
Stoops down to lave his forehead, when his face 



ACCOLON OF GAUL. 



Meets gurgling fairy faces in a ring 
That jostle upward ; babbling, beckoning 
Him deep to wonders, magic built of old 
For some dim witch — 

MORGANE. 

A city walled with gold, 
With beryl battlements and paved with pearls, 
Slim, lambent towers wrought of foamy swirls 
Of alabaster ; and that witch to love. 
More beautiful than any queen above ! — 



He pauses troubled ; but a wizard power, 
In all his bronzen harness, that mad hour 
Plunges him — whither? What if he should miss 
Those cloudy beauties and that creature's kiss ? — 
Ah, Morgane, that same power Accolon 
Saw potent in thine eyes and it hath drawn 
Him onward — onward to what breathless fate ? 

MORGANE. 

Bliss. 

ACCOLON. 

Yea ; too true ! deep have we drank of late ! 
But there may come what stealthy-footed death 
With bony claws to clutch away this breath ? . . . 
I dreamed last night one culled wild flowers for me^ 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



Larger than those of earth ; and I did see 
Their woolly gold, loose, webby woven through, — 
Like fluffy flames spun, — gauzy with fine dew : 
And "Asphodels," I murmured; then, "These 

sure 
Are Eden amaranths, so angel pure 
That love alone may pluck them aye and aye : " 
When she had given, lo, she passed away 
Beyond me, on a misty, yearning brook 
With a sweet song, which all the wild air took 
With torn farewells and pensive melody 
Touching to tears, strange, hopeless utterly ; 
So merciless sad that I yearned high to tear 
Those ingot-cored and gold-crowned lilies there ; 
Yet over me a horror which restrained 
With melancholy presence of two pained 
And awful, God-like eyes that cowed and held 
Me weeping while that sad dirge died or swelled 
Far, far on endless waters borne away : — 
A wild bird's music, smitten when the ray 
Of dawn it burned for graced its drooping head, 
And the pale glory strengthened round it — dead ; 
Daggered of thorns it plunged on, blind in night, 
The slow blood ruby on its breast of white. — 
And I — I knew the flowers which she had given 
Were strays of parting grief and waifs of Heaven 
For tears and memories ; too delicate. 
For what is Earth's, her love immaculate ! 
But then — my God ! my God ! thus I was left, 
And these were with me who was so bereft. 
II 



1 62 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

Oh, rapturous torment of a growing grief, 

That weighed my soul who saw no near relief. . . . 

And bowed and wept into his hands ; and she 

Sorrowful beheld ; and resting at her knee 

Raised slow her oblong lute and smote its chords ; 

But ere the impulse saddened into words, 

Said : " And didst love me as thy lips would prove, 

No visions wrought of sleep might move thy love. 

Firm is all Love in firmness of his poM^er, 

With flame reverberant moated stands his tower ; 

Not so built as to chink from fact a beam 

Of doubt and much less of a doubt from dream ; 

Such, the alchemic fire of Love's desires, — 

That fills its flaming moat, — melts to gold wires 

To chord the old lyre new whereon he lyres." 

So ceased ; and then, sad softness in her eye, 

Sang to his dream a questioning reply : 

" Will love grow less when dead the roguish 

Spring, 
Who from gay eyes sowed violets whispering ? 
Peach petals in wild cheeks, wan-wasted through 
Of withering grief, laid lovely 'neath the dew. 
Will love grow less ? 

" Will love grow less when comes queen Summer 

tall, 
Her throat a lily, long and spiritual ? 



A CCOL ON OF GA UL. 163 

Rich as the poppied swaths — hushed haunt of 

bees — 
Her cheeks, a brown maid's gleaning on the leas, 
Will love grow less ? 

' * Will love grow less when Autumn, sighing there, 
Bends with long frost-streaks in her dark, dark 

hair? 
Tears in grave eyes as in grave heavens above, 
Deep lost in memories' melancholy, love. 
Will love grow less ? 

" Will love grow less when Winter at the door 

Begs, on her thin locks icicles as hoar ? 

While Death's eyes, hollow o'er her shoulder, 

dart 
A look to wring to tears then freeze the heart, 
Will love grow less ? " 

And in her hair wept softly, and her breast 
Rose and was wet with tears ; like as, distressed. 
Night steals on Day rain sobbing through her 
curls. — 

" Though tears become thee even as priceless pearls, 
Weep not, oh, weep not ! — Mine no gloom of doubt. 
But woe for sweet love's death my dream brought 

out," 
He said. ' * Crowned, throned and flame-anointed, he 
Kings our twin-kingdomed hearts eternally : 



1 64 A CCOL ON OF G A UL . 

Love, high in Heaven beginning and to cease 
No majesty vi^hen hearts are laid at peace ; 
But reign supreme, if souls have MTOught thus well, 
A god in Heaven or a god in Hell." 

So they communed. And there her castle stood 

With slender towers white above the wood ; 

A forest lodge, in ivy buried, near ; 

And woodland vistas, where faint herds of deer 

Stalked like soft shadows ; where the roes did run, 

Mavis and throstle caroled in the sun ; 

And white waves marbled up a singing shore. 

For it was Gore, Morgana's realm of Gore, 

The white enchantress' Castle Chariot, 

Where she her husband, Urience, forgot. 



Hurt in that battle where King Arthur strove 

With the five heathen kings, and, slaying, drove 

The five before him, Accolon, distraught. 

To a white castle on his shield was brought, — 

Wood-belted lawns melodious with birds, 

Far from the rush of spears and roar of swords, — 

By twelve dim damsels, tire maids of a queen 

Stately and dark, who moved as if a sheen 

Of starlight shone around her ; and who came 

With healing herbs and searched his wounds. J 

dame, 
So beautiful in raiment silvery. 
So white, that she attendant seemed to be 



A ceo L ON- OF GA UL. 



On that high holy Grael, which Arthur hath 
Souglit ever widely by wild wood and path ; — 
Thus not for him, a worldly one to love, 
Who loved her even to wonder ; skied above 
His worship as the moon above the main, 
That yearneth upward, passionate with pain, 
And suflfereth from weary year to year, 
She peaceful pitiless with virgin cheer. 

One night a tempest tossed and beat and lashed 

The writhing forest and deep thunders dashed 

Sonorous arms together ; and anon, 

Between the thunder pauses, seas would groan 

Like some enormous curse a knight hath lured 

From where it soared to maim it with his sword. 

And Accolon, in fever, seemed to see 

The stormy, wide-wrenched night's eternity 

Yawn hells of golden ghastliness ; and sweep 

Distending foam tempestuous up each steep 

Of raucous iron ; and nude mermaids sit 

With tangled hair back-blown, and lightning-lit, 

Sing wildly ; beckoning with naked arms 

Some hurt barque strangled with the hurrying 

storm's 
Resistless exultation. And there came 
One breaker mounting inward, all aflame 
With glow-worm green, to boom against the cliff 
Its thunderous bulk — and there, sucked pale and 

stiff, 
Tumbled in eddies up the howling rocks. 



1 66 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

His dead, drawn face ; eyes lidless ; matted locks 
Oozed close with brine ; hurled upward flabbily 
To streaming mermaids. Madly seemed to see 
The vampire echoes of the hoarse wood, who, 
Collected, sought him : down the casement drew 
Wet, shuddering, hag-like fingers ; thronging fast 
Up hooting turrets blew an Elfin blast 
For madder hunting, and whirled shouting off 
On to the forest with a screaming scoff, — 
Then, far away, hoofs of a hundred gales, 
As wave rams wave up windy bluffs of Wales, 
Loosed from the ancient hills, the cohorts loud, 
Witches of tempest, clove the driven cloud. 
And down the rocking night rolled, with the glare 
Of goblin eyeballs burning ; their long hair 
Blown, black with rain, unkempt from bony brows ; 
Wide mouths of storm that yelled a Hell carouse, 
Or bulged lean cheeks with wind ; rolled ruining 

by, 

Headlong to roaring cliffs, to headlong die. 

Once when the lightning made the casement glare 
Squares touched to gold, between it rose her hair. 
As if a raven's wing had cut the storm 
Death-driven seaward. And the vague alarm 
Of her calm coming soothed his mind, as hope, 
Surmising wings, assays to test their scope. 
And now she kneeled beside him, beautiful, 
White-raimented and white ; kneeled low, — " to 
lull 



A CCOL ON OF GAUL. 167 

All thoughts of night such nights may bring to thee, 
All such to peace and sleep." — Ah, God ! to see 
Her like a living benediction near ! 
To hear her voice ! her cool hand smoothing here, 
Wistful, his feverish brow and deep dark curls ! 
To see her rich throat's carcaneted pearls 
Rise with her breathing ! eyes' pure influence 
Poured toward him straight as stars, whose sole 

defence 
Against all storm is their bold beauty ! then 
To feel her breath and hear her voice again ! — 
" Love, mark," he said or dreamed he moaned in 

dreams, 
" How bursts the tumult and the thunder gleams ! — 
Nay, Arthur's knights have charged on battle fields 
Of H umber ! fiery spears and fiery shields 
Have flashed and fall'n ! the five fierce kings are 

down ! 
The rush of onset hurls, and night comes on . . . 
Love, one eternal tempest thus with thee 
Were calm, deep calm ! But, no! through thee forme 
Such calm proves tempest. Speak ; I feel thy voice, 
A hush caressing silence, healing noise." 

' * And thou — thou lov'st my voice ? fond Accolon ! 

Why not — yea, why not ? — Nay ! I prithee, groan 

Not for . . . what more hast had long since 
thine all ?" — 

She smiled ; and dashed down storm's black-crum- 
bled wall, 



AC COL ON OF GA UL. 



Baptizing moonlight bathed her, foot and face 
Deluging, as his soul turned toward her grace 
With worship from despair and secret grief . . . 
And that immortal night to him she said 
Words, lay he white in death had raised him red. 

"Now rest," she said, "I love thee with much 

love ! — 
Some speak of secret love, but God above 
Hath knowledge and divinement. Winds may 

- blow ; 
To lie by thee to-night my mind is ; so," — 
She laughed, — " sleep well ! For me, but thy fast 

word 
Of knighthood, look thou, and thy naked sword 
Laid in betwixt us . . , Let it be a wall 
Strong between love and lust and lov'st me all in 

all." 
Undid the goodly gold from her clasped waist ; 
Unbound deep locks ; and, like a blossom faced, 
Stood sweet an unswayed stem that ran to bud 
In breasts and face a graceful womanhood : 
And fragrance was to her as natural 
As odor to the rose ; and she a tall 
White ardor and white fervor in the room 
Moved, some pale presence that with light doth 

bloom. 
And all his eyes and lips and limbs were fire ; 
His tongue, delirious, babbled of " desire " ; 
How hers was devil's kindness, which is even 



A CCOL ON OF GAUL. 169 

More than fiend's fury, since the soul sees Heaven, 
Among eternal torments unforgiven : 
Temptation harbored, like a bloody rust 
On a bright blade, leaves ugly stains : how lust 
Is love's undoing when love's limbs are cast 
Naked before desire : what love so chaste 
But this warm nearness of what should be hid 
Makes it a lawless love ? — " But thou hast bid. 
Rest thou. I love thee, love thee as I know ; 
And all my love doth battle with love's foe ! " 

Then she, as pure as snows of peaks that keep 
Sun-cloven crowns of virgin-steadfast steep, 
Frowned on him, and the thoughts, that in his 

brain 
Had risen a glare of gems, set dull as rain, 
As one high look she gave of grief and pain. 
He, turning, sighed into his hands ; and she 
Stretched the broad blade's division suddenly. 

And so they lay its iron between them twain : 
Unsleeping he, for all the brute disdain 
Of passion in him struggled up and stood 
A rebel wrangling with the brain and blood. 
An hour stole by : she slept or seemed to sleep. 
The winds of night came vigorous from the deep 
With rain scents of storm-watered field and wold, 
And breathed of ocean meadows bluely rolled. 
He drowsed ; and time passed stealing as for one 
Whose easy life dreams in Avilion. 



A ceo L ON OF GA UL. 



Vast bulks of black, wind-shattered rack went down 

High casement squares of heaven, a crystal crown 

Of bubbled moonlight on each giant head, 

Like as great ghosts of Cornwall kings long dead. 

And then he thought she lightly laughed and sighed, 

So soft a taper had not bent aside, 

And leaned a soft face, seen through loosened hair, 

Above him, whisp'ring as one speaks in prayer, 

'* Behold, the sword ! I take the sword away ! " 

It curved and clashed where the strewn rushes lay ; 
Shone glassy, glittering like a watery beam 
Of moonlight in the moonlight. He did deem 
She moved in sleep and dreamed perverse, nor wist 
That which she did until two fierce lips kissed 
His wondering eyes to wakement of her thought. 
Then said he, "Love, my word ! is it then naught ? " 
But now he felt her kisses over and over, 
And laughter of, " What is thy word, my lover? 
Thy word, if she, to whom thou gavest it. 
Unbind thee of it ? lo, and she sees fit ! " 



II. 



M OON ; and the wistful Autumn sat among 

The lurid woodlands ; chiefs who now were 
wrung 
By crafty ministers, sun, wind and frost. 
To don imperial pomp at any cost. 



AC COL ON OF GAUL. 



On each wild hill they stood as if for war, 
Flaunting barbaric raiment wide and far ; 
And burnt-out lusts in aged faces raged ; 
Their tottering state by flattering zephyrs paged, 
"Who in a little fretful while, how soon ! 
Would work rebellion under some wan moon ; 
Pluck their old beards ; deriding, shriek, and tear 
Rich royalty ; sow tattered through the air 
Their purple majesty ; and from each head 
Dash down its golden crown, and in its stead 
Set there a pale-death mockery of snow,. 
Leave them bemoaning beggars bowed with woe. 

Wild blare of horns and snapping of steel bows — 

A mort ! a mort ! — the hunt is up and goes. 

Beneath the acorn-dropping oaks, in green, — 

Dark woodland green, — a boar-spear held between 

His selle and hunter's head, and at his thigh 

A good broad hanger, and one hand on high 

To wind the rapid echoes from his horn, 

That scare the field-birds from the sheaved corn. 

Away, away they flash, a belted band 

From Camelot, through that haze-haunted land ; 

Hounds leashed and leamers and a sheen of steel, 

A tramp of horse and the bell-baying peal 

Of coupled stag-hounds and — the hart ! the hart, 

A lordly height, doth from the covert dart ; 

And the big blood-hounds bound unto the chase. 

A hunt ! a hunt ! the pryce seems but a pace 

On ere 't is wound. But now, Avhere interlace 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



The dense-briered underwoods, the dogs have lost 
The slot, there where a forest brook hath crossed 
With intercepting water full of leaves. 

Beyond, the hart a tangled labyrinth weaves 

Through dimmer boscage ; and the wizard sun 

Shapes many shadowy stags that seem to run 

Wild herds before the baffled foresters. 

And, treed aloft, a reckless laugh one hears. 

As if some helping goblin of the trees 

Mocked them the unbayed hart and made a breeze 

His pursuivant of mocking. Hastening thence. 

Pursued King Arthur and King Urience, 

With one small brachet, till scarce hear could they 

Their fellowship, far distant, ride away. 

And there the hart plunged bravely through the 

brake, 
Leaving a torn path shaking in his wake, 
Down which they followed on through many a 

copse. 
Above whose brush, close on before, the tops 
Of the stag's antlers swelled anon, and so 
Were gone where beat the brambles to and fro. 
And still they drave him hard ; and ever near 
Seemed that great hart unwearied ; and such cheer 
Still stung them to the chase. When Arthur's 

horse 
Gasped mightily and, lunging in his course, 
Lay dead, a lordly bay ; and Urience 
Reined his gray hunter laboring. And thence 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



King Arthur went afoot. When suddenly 
He was aware of a wide waste of sea, 
And near the wood the hart upon the sward 
Bayed, panting unto death and winded hard. 
And so the king dispatched him and the pryce 
Wound on his golden hunting-bugle thrice. 

As if each echo, which that wild horn's blast 
Roused from its sleep, — the quietude had cast 
Tender as mercy on it, — in a band 
Rose moving sounds of gladness hand in hand, 
Came twelve fair damsels, sunny in sovereign 

white. 
From the red woodland gliding. They the knight 
Graced with obeisance ; and " Our lord," said one, 
" Tenders you courtesy until the dawn ; 
The Earl Sir Damas. Well in his wide keep. 
Seen thither with due worship, you shall sleep." 
And so he came o'erwearied to a hall. 
An owlet-haunted pile, whose weedy wall 
Towered based on crags ; rough turrets, crowding 

high,— 
An old gaunt giant-castle, — 'gainst a sky 
Wherein the moon hung owl-faced, gray and full. 
Down on dark sea-foundations broke the dull 
Vast monotone of ocean, and unrolled 
The windy wilderness that was as old 
As the defiant headlands, stretching out 
Into the night, with their voluminous shout 
Of wreck and wrath forever, Arthur then 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



Among the gaunt Earl's bandits, swarthy men, 
Ate in the wild hall. Then a damsel led 
The king with flaring lamp unto his bed 
Down lonely corridors of that old keep ; 
And soon he rested in a heavy sleep. 

And then King Arthur woke, and woke 'mid 

groans 
Of dolorous knights ; and 'round him lay the bones 
Of many woful champions mouldering ; 
And he could hear the open ocean fling 
Its booming waves above. And so he thought, 
*' It is some nightmare weighing me, distraught 
By that long hunt ; " and then he sought to shake 
The horror off and to himself awake ; 
But still he heard sad groans and whispering sighs ; 
And deep in iron-ribbed cells the eyes 
Of pale, cadaverous knights shone fixed on him, 
Unhappy ; and he felt his senses swim 
With foulness of the cell ; cried, " What are ye ? 
Ghosts of chained champions or a company 
Of phantoms, bodiless fiends ? If speak ye can. 
Speak, in God's name ! for I am here — a man ! " 
Then groaned the shaggy throat of one who lay 
A dusky nightmare dying day by day, 
Yet once of comely mien and strong withal 
And greatly gracious ; but, now hunger-tall, 
A scrawny ghost with faded hands and cheeks : 
" Sir knight," said he, " know that the wretch who 

speaks 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 175 

Is but an one of twenty knights here shamed 
By him who lords this castle, Damas named, 
Who mews us here for slow starvation. Seen 
Around you, rot the bones of some eighteen 
Tried knights of Britain. And God grant that 

soon 
My hunger-lengthened ghost may see the moon 
Beyond the famine of this prisonment." 
With that he sighed, and down the dungeon went 
A rustling sigh, like saddened sin, and so 
Another dim, thin voice complained their woe : — 

*' He doth enchain us with this common end : 

That he find one who will his prowess bend 

To the attainment of this livelihood. 

A younger brother, Ontzlake, hath he ; good 

And courteous, withal most noble, whom 

This Damas hates — yea, ever seeks his doom ; 

Denying him to their estate all right 

Save that he holds by main of arms and might. 

Through puissance hath Ontzlake some fat fields 

And one right sumptuous manor, where he yields 

Belated knights all hospitality. 

Then bold is Ontzlake, Damas cowardly. 

For Ontzlake would decide by sword and lance, 

Body to body, this inheritance ; 

But Damas, vile as he is courageless. 

Must on all guests perforce lay such distress, 

To fight for him or starve. For you must know 

That in his country he is hated so 



1 76 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

That no helm here is who will take the fight. 
Thus fortunes it our plight is such a plight," 
Quoth he and ceased. And wondering at the tale 
The king was thoughtful ; and each wasted, pale, 
Poor countenance perused him while he spake : 
" And what reward if one this cause should 

take?"— 
" Deliverance for all if of us one 
Consent to be his party's champion. 
But treachery and he are so close kin 
We loathe the part as some misshapen sin ; 
And here would rather with the rats find death 
Than, serving falseness, save and shame our 

breath." 

" May God deliver you in mercy, sirs ! " — 

And right anon an iron noise he hears 

Of chains rushed loose and bars jarred rusty back, 

The heavy gate croak open. And the black 

Of the rank cell astonished was with light, 

That danced fantastic with the frantic night. 

One high torch, sidewise worried by the gust, 

Sunned that dark den of hunger, death and rust. 

And one tall damsel vaguely vestured, fair 

With shadovi'y hair, poised on the rocky stair. 

And laughing on the King, "What cheer?" said 

she ; 
" God's life, the keep stinks vilely ! And to see 
These noble knights endungeoned, starving here, 
Doth pain me sore with pity. But, what cheer ? " 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



" Thou mockest us. For me, the somest 

Since I was suckled ; and of any quest 

To me the most imperiling and strange. — 

But what wouldst thou?" said Arthur. She, "A 

change 
I offer thee ; through thee to these with thee, 
If thou dost promise, in love's courtesy, 
To fight for Damas and his livelihood. 
And if thou wilt not — look ! behold this brood 
Of lean and dwindled bellies, famine-eyed, — 
Keen knights once, — who refused me. So decide." 

Then thought the King of the sweet sky, the breeze 
That blew delicious over waves and trees ; 
Thick fields of grasses and God's sunny earth, 
"Whose beating heat filled the red heart with mirth, 
And made the world one sovereign pleasure-house 
"Where king and serf might revel and carouse ; 
Then of the hunt on autumn-plaintive hills ; 
Lone forest lodges by the radiant rills ; 
His palace at Caerlleon upon Usk, 
And Camelot's loud halls that through the dusk 
Blazed far and bloomed a rose of revelry 
Or in the misty morning shadowy 
Loomed grave for audience. And then he thought 
Of his Round Table and the Grael wide sought 
In haunted holds by many a haunted shore ; 
Then marveled of what wars would rise and roar 
"With dragon heads unconquered and devour 
This realm of Britain and crush out that flower 

12 



1/8 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

Of chivalry whence ripened his renown ; 

And then the reign of some besotted crown, 

A bandit king of lust, idolatry — 

And with that thought for tears he could not see. — 

Then of his greatest champions, King Ban's son, 

And Galahad and Tristram, Accolon ; 

And then, ah God ! of his loved Guenevere : 

And with the thought — to starve 'mid horrors 

here ? — 
For, being unfriend to Arthur and his Court, 
Well knew he this grim Earl would bless that sport 
Of fortune which had fortuned him so well 
To have his King to starve within a cell, 
In the entombing rock beside the deep. — 
And all the life shut in his limbs did leap 
Through eager veins and sinews, fierce and red, 
Stung on to action, and he rose and said : 
" That which thou askest is right hard, but, lo ! 
To rot here harder. I will fight his foe. 
But, mark, I have no weapons and no mail. 
No steed against that other to avail." 

"Fear not for that; and thou shalt lack none, 

sire." — 
And so she led the way : her torch's fire 
Scaring wild spidery shadows at each stride 
From cob-webbed coignes the scowling arches hide. 
At length they reached an iron-studded door. 
Which she unlocked with one harsh key she bore 
'Mid many keys bunched at her girdle ; thence 



A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 1 79 

They issued on a terraced eminence. 
Beneath, the sea broke sounding ; and the King 
Breathed open air that had the scent and sting 
Of brine morn-vigored and blue-billowed foam ; 
And in the east the second dawning's gloam, 
Since that unlucky chase, was freaked with streaks 
Red as the ripe stripes of an apple's cheeks. 
And so within that larger light of dawn 
It seemed to Arthur now that he had known 
This maiden at his court, and so he asked. 
But she, \vell tutored, her real person masked, 
And answered falsely, " Nay, deceive thee not. 
Thou saw' St me ne'er at Arthur's court, I wot. 
For here it likes me best to sing and spin 
And work the hangings olden halls within. 
No courts or tournaments to so enslave. 
No knights to flatter me ! For me — the wave. 
The forest, field and sky ; the calm, the storm ; 
My garth wherein I walk to think ; the charm 
Of uplands redolent at bounteous noon 
And full of sunlight ; night's free stars and moon ; 
White ships that pass some several every year ; 
These lonesome towers and yon wild mews to hear." 
*' An owlet maid," the King laughed. — But untrue 
Was she, and of false Morgane's treasonous crew, 
Who worked strange wiles ev'n to the slaying of 
The King, half-brother, whom she did not love. — 
And presently she brought him where in state 
This swarthy Damas 'mid mailed cowards sate. 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



And Accolon, at Castle Chariot still, 

Had lost long months in love. Her husband ill, 

Morgane, perforce, must leave her lover here 

Among the hills of Gore. A lodge stood near 

A cascade in the forest, where their wont 

Was to sit listening the falling fount, 

That, through sweet talks of many idle hours 

On moss-banks languid with the violet flowers. 

Had learned a laughing language thus thereof, 

And wandered ever gently whispering " love " : 

Below the lodge it pooled into a well. 

And slipping thence through dripping shadows fell 

From rippling rock to rock. Here Accolon, 

With Morgane's hollow lute, each studious dawn 

Came all alone ; not ev'n her brindled hound 

To bound beside him o'er the gleaming ground ; 

No handmaid lovely of his loveliest fair. 

Or paging dwarf in purple with him there ; 

But this her lute, about which her perfume 

Clung odorous of memories, that made bloom 

Her flower-features rosy at his eyes. 

That saw soft words, his sense could but surmise, 

Shaped on dim, breathing lips ; the laugh that drunk 

Her deep soul-fire from eyes wherein it sunk 

And slowly waned away to smouldering dreams, 

Fathomless with thought, far in their dove-gray 

gleams. 
And so for those most serious eyes and lips. 
Faint, filmy features, all the music slips 
Of buoyant passion bubbling to his voice 



A ceo L ON OF GA UL. 



To chant her praises ; and with nervous poise 
His fleet trained fingers call from her long lute 
Such riotous notes as must make envy-mute 
The nightingale that listens quivering. 
And well he knows that winging hence it 11 sing 
These aching notes, whose beauties burn and pain 
Its anguished heart now sobless, not in vain 
Beneath her casement in that garden old 
Dingled with heavy roses ; in the gold 
Of Camelot's stars and pearl-encrusted moon ; 
And if it dies, the heartache of the tune 
Shall clamor stormy farewells at her ear. 
Of death more dear than life if love be near ; 
Melt her quick eyes to tears, her throat to sobs, 
That vanquish her, while separation throbs 
Hard at her heart, and longing lifts to Death 
Two prayerful eyes of pleading, " for one breath — 
An instant of fierce life — crushed in his arms 
Close, close ! And, oh, for such take thou my 

charms. 
That have thus lived, to be thine evermore ! " 
And sweet to know that every vow shall soar 
Ev'n to the dull ear of her drowsy lord 
Beside her ; heart-defiant as each v/ord 
Harped in the bird's voice rhythmically clear. 
And thus he sang to her who was not near : — 

" She comes ! her presence, like a moving song 
Breathed soft of loveliest lips and lute-sweet 
tongue. 



i82 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

Sways all the gurgling forest from its rest : 
I fancy where her rustling foot is pressed, 
So faltering, love seems timid, but how strong 
The darling love that flutters in her breast ! 

"She comes! and wildwood vistas are stormed 
through — 

As if wild wings, wet-varnished with the dew, 
Had flashed a sudden sunbeam-tempest past, 
— With her eyes' inspiration, deeply chaste ; 

A rhythmic lavishment of bright gray blue, 
Long arrows of her eyes perfection cast. 

" O Love, she comes ! O Love, I feel thy breath. 
Like the soft South that idly wandereth 

Through musical leaves of laughing laziness. 
Page on before her, how sweet —none can guess ! 
To say my soul, ' Here 's harmony dear as death, 
To sigh wild vows or, utterless, to bless.' 

" She comes, O Life ! and all thy brain is brave 
To war for words to laud her and to lave 
Imperial beauty in such vows whereof 
Should hush melodious cooings of a dove : 
For her light feet the favored path to pave 
With oaths, like roses, raving mad with love. 

" She comes ! in me a passion — as the moon 
Works madness in strong men — my blood doth 
swoon 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 183 



Unto her glory ; and I feel her soul 
Cling lip to lip with mine ; and now the whole 
Mix with me, aching like a tender tune 
Exhausted, lavished in a god's control. 

" She conies ! ah, God ! ye eager stars that grace 
The fragmentary skies, that dimple space, 

Fall, and I hear her harp-sweet footfalls come. 

Ah, wood-indulging, violet-vague perfume. 
Art of her presence, of her wild-flower face, 

That, like some gracious blossom, stains the 
gloom ? 

" Oh, bounding exultation of the blood ! 

That now — as sunbursts, (the almighty mood 
Of some moved god,) scatter the storm that roars. 
And hush — her love, like some spent splendor, 
pours 

Into with all immaculate maidenhood ; 
And all the heart that hesitates — adores. 



" Vanquished, sweet victor and triumphant sweet ! 
The height of heaven — supine at thy feet. 

Where love feasts crowned, and basks, in such 
a glare 

As cores of moons bum, in thine eyes and hair, 
Unutterable with raveled fires that cheat 

The ardent clay of me and make me air. 



1 84 A CCOL ON OF GA UL. 

'* And so, rare witch, thy blood, like some lewd 
wine, 

Shall subtly make me, like thee, half divine ; 
And — sweet rebellion — so defy and urge 
Thee on to combat with a kiss, nor dirge 

The war, that rubies all thy proud cheeks' shine 
With struggling blushes, till white truce emerge. 

" My life for thine, surrendered lip to lip : 
A striving being pulsant, that shall slip, 

Like song and flame, in sense from thee to me : 
Nor kept, but quick surrendered back to thee ; 
So our two loves live as a singleship, 
Ten thousand loves as one eternally." 

III. 

TTHE evening came : long shadows cowled the way 
Like sombre pilgrims who have kneeled to pray 
Beside a wayside shrine ; and, rosy-rolled 
Up th' amaranthine west, a stormy gold 
Towered battlements far up the opal skies. 
Which seemed to open gates of Paradise 
On rushing hinges of the winds, and blaze 
God's glory far 'mid melodies of praise. 
And from the sunset, down the roseate ways, 
To Accolon, who with his idle lute. 
Reclined in revery against the root 
Of a great oak, a fragment of the west, 
A dwarf, in crimson satin tightly dressed. 



ACCOLON OF GAUL. 



Skipped like a leaf the rather frosts have burned 

And cozened to a fever red, that turned 

And withered all its sap. And this one came 

From Camelot ; from his beloved dame, 

Morgane the Fay. He on his shoulder bore 

A burning blade wrought strange with wizard lore 

Of mystic runes ; within a scabbard, which 

Glared venomous, with angry jewels rich. 

He, louting to the knight, " Sir knight,'' said he, 

^' Your lady with all sweetest courtesy 

Assures you — ah, unworthy messenger 

I of such beauty ! — of that love of her." 

Then dofhng the great baldric, with the sv/ord 

To him he gave : "And this from him, my lord 

King Arthur ; even his Excalibur, 

The Elfin blade which Merlin gat of her, 

The Ladye of the Lake, who Launcelot 

Fostered from infanthood, as well you wot, 

In some weird mere in Briogne's tangled lands 

Of charms and mist ; where filmy fair)' bands 

By lazy moons of autumn spin their fill 

Of giddy morrice on the frosty hill. 

By goodness of her favor this is sent, 

Who craved King Arthur boon with this intent : 

That soon for her a desperate combat, one 

'Gainst one of mightier prowess, were begun ; 

And with the sword Excalibur right sure 

Were she against that champion to endure. — 

The blade is trenchant, but guard thou the sheath. 

Which, belting, saves the wearer from all death." 



i86 A CCOLON OF GA UL. 

He said : and Accolon looked on the sword, 

A fiery falchion ; said, " It shall go hard 

With him through thee, unconquerable blade, 

"Who e'er he be, who on my Queen hath laid 

Insult or injury : and hours as slow 

As palsied hours in Purgatory go 

For those unmassed, till I have slain this foe ! — 

Thy guerdon, page. — And now, to her who gave, 

Dispatch ! and this : To all commands — her slave, 

To death obedient. In love or war 

Her love to make me all the warrior. 

Plead her grace mercy for so long delay 

From love that dies an hourly death each day 

Till her white hands kissed he shall kiss her face, 

By which his life breathes in continual grace." 

Thus he commanded. And incontinent 

The dwarf departed like a red shaft sent , 

From clouds in uniforms of scarlet light 

Ranked o'er long, purple glooms. And with the 

night. 
Whose votaress cypress stoled the dying strife 
Softly of day, and for whose perished life 
Gave heaven her golden stars, in dreamy thought 
Wends Accolon to Castle Chariot. . . . 



And it befell that, wandering one dawn, 
As was his wont, across a dew-drenched lawn. 
Glad with night freshness and elastic health 
In sky and earth, that lavished worlds of wealth 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 187 

From heady winds and racy scents, — a knight 

And lofty lady met him ; gaybedight, 

With following of six esquires ; and they 

Held on straight wrists the jess'd gerfalcon gray, 

And rode a-hawking o'er the leas of Gore 

From Ontzlake's manor, where he languished ; sore 

Hurt in the lists, a spear wound in his thigh : 

Who had besought — for much he feared to die — 

This knight and his fair lady, as they rode 

To hawk near Chariot, Morgane's abode, 

That they would beg her in all charity 

To come to him, (for in chirurgery 

Of all that land she was the greatest leach,) 

And her for his recovery beseech. 

So, Accolon saluted, they drew rein, 

And spake their message, — for right overfain 

Were they toward their sport, — that he might bear 

Petition to that lady. But, not there 

Was Arthur's sister, as they well must wot ; 

But now a se'nnight lay at Camelot 

The guest of Guenevere ; and with her there 

Four other queens of farther Britain were : 

Isoud of Ireland, she of Cornwall Queen, 

King Mark's wife, — who right rarely then was- 

seen 
At Court for jealousy of Mark, who knew 
Her to that lance of Lyonesse how true 
Since mutual quaffing of a philter ; while 
How guilty Guenevere on such could smile : — 
She of Northgales and she of Eastland ; and 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



She of the Out Isles Queen. A fairer band 

For sovereignty and love and loveliness 

Was not in any realm to grace and bless. 

Then quoth the knight, "Ay? see how fortune 

turns 
And varies like an April day, that burns 
Now welkins blue with calm, now scowls them 

down. 
Revengeful, with a black storm's wrinkled frown. 
For, look, this Damas, who so long hath lain 
A hiding vermin, fearful of all pain. 
Dark in his bandit towers by the deep, 
"Wakes from a five years' torpor and a sleep, 
And sends dispatch a courier to my lord 
With, ' Lo ! behold ! to-morrow with the sword 
Earl Damas by his knight, at point of lance. 
Decides the issue of inheritance. 
Body to body, or by champion,' 
Right hard to find such ere to-morrow dawn. 
Though sore bestead lies Ontzlake, and he could, 
Right fain were he to save this livelihood." 

Then thought Sir Accolon : " Th' adventure goes 
Even as Morgane hath messengered. Who knows 
But what this battle is for her dear sake?" 
Then said to those : " His quarrel I will take, — 
If he be so conditioned, harried of 
Estate and life, — in knighthood and for love. 
Conduct me thither." With gramercies then 
Mounted a void horse of that wondering train. 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



And thence departed with two squires. And they 

Came to a lone, dismantled priory 

Hard by a castle on whose square gray towers, 

Machicolated, o'er the forest's bowers, 

The immemorial morning bloomed and blushed : 

A woodland manor, old and deep-embushed 

In wild and woody hills. And then one wound 

An echoing horn, and with the savage sound 

The drawbridge rumbled moatward, clanking, and 

Into a paved court passed the little band. . . 

When all the world was morning, gleam and glare 

Of far deluging glory, and the air 

Sang with the wood-bird, like a silver lyre 

Swept swift of minstrel fingers, wire on wire. 

Ere that fixed hour of prime, came Arthur armed 

For battle royally. A black steed warmed 

A keen impatience 'neath him ; huge in mail 

Of foreign make ; accoutred head and tail 

In costly sendal ; rearward wine-dark red, 

Amber as sunlight to his fretful head. 

Blue armor of knit links had Arthur on, 

Beneath a robe of honor made of drawn, 

Ribbed satin, diapered and purflewed deep 

With lordly golden purple ; whence did sweep 

Two hanging acorn-bangles of fine gold ; 

And at his thigh a falchion, long and bold 

And triple-edged ; its rune-stamped scabbard, of 

Red leather, a rich baldric held above 

Of new cut deer-skin ; this, laborious wrought 



1 90 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

And curiously, with slides of gold was fraught, 
And buckled with a buckle white that shone, 
Bone of the seahorse, tongued with jet-black bone : 
And, sapphire-set, a burgonet of gold 
Whereon a wyvern sprawled, whose wide throat 

rolled 
A flame-red tongue of agate, and whose eyes 
Glowed venomous, rich rubies of great prize : 
And in his hand a wiry lance of ash, 
Lattened with finest silver, like a flash 
Of sunlight, made an ever-twinkling gash. 
A squire attended ; a tall youth whose head 
Waved jaunty with close curls, whereon a red 
Long-feathered cap was ; 'neath which eyes, as 

keen 
As a wild-hawk's, and auburn beard were seen ; 
His legs in hose of rarest Totness clad ; 
And parti-colored leather shoes he had, 
Gold-latched ; and in his hand a bannered spear, 
Speckled and bronzen, sharpened in the air. 

So with his following, while lay like scars 
The blue mist thin along the woodland bars. 
Through dew and fog, through shadow and through 

ray, 
Joustward Earl Damas led the forest way. 
Then to King Arthur, when arrived were these 
Where lofty lists shone silken through the trees, 
Bannered and draped, a wimpled damsel came, 
Secret, upon a palfrey all aflame 



ACCOLON OF GAUL. 



With sweat and heat of hurry, and, ' ' From her, 

Your sister Morgane, your Excalibur, 

With tender greeting. For you well may need 

Him in this strange adventure. So God speed ! " 

Said and departed suddenly : nor knew 

The King but this his weapon tried and true : 

But brittle this and fashioned like thereof. 

And false of baser metal, — in unlove 

And treason to his life, — from her of kin 

Half sister, who thought sure that she would win. 

Then heralded into the lists he rode. 

Opposed flashed Accolon, whose strength bestrode, 

Exultant, proud in talisman of that sword, 

A dun horse lofty as a haughty lord, 

Pure white about each small, impatient hoof : 

And knight and steed shone clad in arms of proof 

Of yellow-dappled, variegated plate 

Of Spanish laton. And of sovereign state 

His surcoat robe of honor, white and black, 

Of satin, red-silk needled front and back 

Then crimson bordered : and above this robe 

His two-edged sword, — a throbbing golden globe 

Of vicious jewels, — thrust its splendid hilt ; 

Its broad belt, tawny and with goldwork gilt, 

Clasped with the eyelid of a black sea-horse 

Whose tongue was rosy gold. And stern as Force 

His visored helmet burned like fire, of rich 

And bronzen laton hammered ; and on which 

An hundred crystals glittered, thick as on 



192 A CCOL ON OF GA UL. 

A silver web bright-studding dews of dawn ; 
The casque's tall crest a taloned griffin ramped, 
In whose horned head one virtuous gem was 

stamped. 
An ashen spear, round-shafted, overlaid 
With azure silver, whereon colors played, 
Firm in his iron gauntlet lithely swayed. 

Intense on either side an instant stood 
Glittering as serpents that, with spring renewed. 
In glossy scales meet on a grassy way. 
Advance with angry tongues at poisonous play. 
Then clanged a herald's clarion, and sharp heels. 
Harsh-thrust, each champion's springing courser 

feels 
Spur to red onset. The adventured spears 
Flashed, like swift sunbursts of a storm when clears 
The adverse thunder ; and in middle course 
Shrieked shrill the unpierced shields ; mailed horse 

from horse 
Lashed madly pawing — and a hoarse roar rang 
From tossing lists, till the wild echoes rang 
Of league on league of forest and of cliti. 
Rigid the champions rode where, standing stiff, 
Their squires tendered them the spears they held ; 
Nor stayed to breathe ; but, scarcely firmly selled. 
Rushed fiery forward shield to savage shield ; 
Opposing crest to crest ; the wyvern reeled 
Toward the towering griffin ; scorn and scath 
Glaring undaunted in the rocking wrath 



A C COLON OF GA UL. 



Of balls of jeweled eyes, they raged and stood, 
Slim, slippery symbols, in the sun like blood. 
The lance of Accolon, as on a rock 
The storm-launched foam breaks bafiled, with the 

shock 
On Arthur's sounding shield burst splintered force ; 
But him resistless Arthur's, — high from horse 
Uplifted, — headlong bare, and crashed him down, 
A long sword's length unsaddled. Accolon 
For one stunned moment lay. Then rising drew 
The great sword at his hip that shone like dew 
Sun-brushed with morn. " Descend," he stiffly 

said, 
" To proof of better weapons, head for head ! 
Enough of spears ; to swords ! " And so the knight 
Addressed him to the King, Dismounting, white 
His moon-bright brand the King unsheathed ; and 

high 
Each covering shield gleamed slanting to the sky, 
Relentless, strong and stubborn ; underneath 
Their wary shelters foined the glittering death 
That fenced and thrust ; one tortoise shield de- 
scends ; 
A fierce blade leaps, — shrill as a flame that sends 
A long fang heavenward, or a battle word, — 
Swings hard and trenchant and, resounding heard. 
Burns surly helmward full ; again each sword 
Bounds to a brother blow to crash again 
Blade on brave blade. And o'er the battered 
plain, 
^3 



194 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

Over and over, blade on baleful blade ; 
Teeth clenched ; behind hot visors eyes that made 
A cavernous, smouldering fury ; shield at shield, 
Unflinchingly remained and scorned to yield. 

And Arthur drew aside to rest upon 
His falchion for a space. But Accolon 
As yet, through virtue of that magic sheath 
Fresh and almighty, being no nearer death 
Through loss of blood than when the trial begun, 
Chafed with delay. But Arthur with the sun, 
His heavy mail, the loss from wounds of blood, 
Leaned over weary and so resting stood ; 
When Accolon cried sneering, " Dost thou rest, 
O woman ? " and hard on King Arthur pressed ; 
" Defend thee ! yield thee ! or die recreant ! " 
Full on his helm a hewing blow did plant, 
That beat a flying fire from the steel. 
Stunned, like one drunk with wine, the king did reel 
Breath, brain-bewildered. Then, infuriate, 
Nerve-stung with vigor by that blow, in hate 
Gnarled all his strength into one blow of might, 
And in both fists the huge blade knotted tight 
And swung, terrific with the coming stroke, — 
As some swift light that hurls the riven oak, — 
Boomed on the beaten burgonet he wore ; 
Hacked through and through the crest, and cleanly 

shore 
The golden boasting of its griffin, fierce 
With hollow clamor, down astounded ears. 



ACCOLON OF GAUL. 



No further thence — but shattered to the grass, 
That brittle blade, crushed as if made of glass. 
Into hot pieces like a broken ray 
Burst sunward and in feverish fragments lay. 
Then groaned the King unarmed. And then he 

knew 
This no Excalibur, so tried and true, 
And perfect tempered, runed and mystical ! 
He sobbed, " Morgane betrays me ! " — for withal 
Him seemed this foe, who fought with so much 

stress, 
So long untiring, and with no distress 
Of wounds or heat, through treachery bare his 

brand ; 
And then he knew it by the hilt his hand 
Clutched for an avenging stroke. For Accolon 
In madness urged the belted battle on 
His King defenceless ; who, the hilted cross 
Of that false weapon grasped, beneath the boss 
Of his deep-dented shield crouched ; and around 
Crawled the unequal conflict o'er the ground, 
Sharded with shattered spears and blow-hewn bits 
Of shivered steel and gold that burnt in fits. 
So hunted, yet defiant, cowering 
Beneath his shield's defence, the dauntless king 
Persisted stoutly. And, devising still 
How to secure his sword and by what skill, 
Him thus it fortuned when most desperate : 
In that close chase they came where, shattered late, 
Lay tossed the truncheon of a bursten lance, 



196 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

Which, deftly seized, to Accolon's advance 

He wielded valorous. Against the fist 

Smote where the gauntlet husked the nervous wrist, 

Which strained the weapon for a wrathful blow ; 

Palsied, the tightened sinews of his foe 

Loosened from effort, and the falchion seized 

Easy was yielded. Then the wroth king squeezed, 

— Hurling the moon-disk of his shield afar, — 

Him in both knotted arms of wiry war. 

Rocked sidewise twice and thrice ; — as one hath 

seen 
A stern wind take an ash-tree, roaring green, 
Nodding its sappy bulk of trunk and boughs 
To dizziness, from tough, coiled roots carouse 
Its long height thundering ; — King Arthur shook 
Sir Accolon and headlong flung. Then took, 
Tearing away, that scabbard from his side. 
Flung through the breathless lists, that far and wide 
Gulped in the battle voiceless. Then right wroth 
Secured Excalibur, and grasped of both 
Wild hands swung glittering and brought bitter 

down 
On rising Accolon. Steel, bone and brawn 
The blow hewed through. Unsettled every sense, 
Bathed in a world of blood, his limbs lay tense 
And writhen, then ungathered limp with death. 
Bent o'er him Arthur, from the brow beneath 
Unlaced the helm and opened and then asked, 
When the fair forehead's hair curled dark un- 

casqued : 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



" Say, ere thou diest, whence and what thou art ! — 
What king, what court is thine? And from what 

part 
Of Britain dost thou come ? Speak ! — Yea, me- 

thinks 
I have beheld thee — where ? Before death drinks 
The soul-light from life's cups, thine eyes . 

thou art — 
"What art thou, speak ! " 

He answered, laboring short 
With tortured breathing : "I ? — one Accolon 
Of Gaul — a knight of Arthur's court — at dawn — 
God knows what T am now for love so slain ! " 
Then bent King Arthur nearer and again 
Drew back ; dim anguish in his manner, sighed : 
" One of my own ! one of my own ! the pride 
Of all my Table ! " — Then asked softly, " Say, 
Whose sword is this thou hadst, or in what way 
Thou cam'st by it? " But, wandering, that knight 
Heard with dull ears, divining but by sight 
What had been asked, exclaimed, " Woe worth the 

sword ! 
— From love, thou hearest ! yea, from love yet 

lord !— 
From Morgane ! lovely Morgane, who had made 
Me strong o'er kings an hundred ; to have swayed 
Britain ! hadst thou not risen like a fate 
To make the world miscarry out of hate — 
A king ! — dost hear ? — a gold and blood crowned 

king 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



With Arthur's sister-queen ! — No bird can wing 

Higher than her ambition, that resolved 

King Arthur's death was needed ; and devolved 

Plots that should prosper when the year grew sear, 

Some liberal morning, like an almoner, 

Prodigal of silver to the begging air ; 

Some turbulent eve, that in heaven's turquoise 

rolled 
Convulsive glories deep in fiery gold ; 
Some night — the forest and the vasty night 
Of summer stars — the king — the forest fight. — 
Nay ! a crowned curse and crimeful clad she came 
To me ; no woman, but a thing of flame, 
That laughed on me with harlot lips that nursed 
Death in wild kisses and the worm that cursed 
My soul forever ! For, behind her youth, 
She shrivels to a hag ! — O vile untruth ! — 
Harlot ! — nay, spouse of Urience, King of Gore ! — 
Sweet wanton ! — nay, sweet death ! thou art not 

poor 
In that thou hast thy dream, though love may 

grieve 
That death so ruins it ! — Thou dost perceive 
How my soul hates thee ! — Witness bear this field 
How my soul loves thee ! — What ! and will it 

yield ? — 
Enough ! enough ! so hale me hence to die ! " 

Then anger in the good king's gloomy eye 
Burnt, instant-embered, as one oft may see 



A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 1 99 

A star leak out of heaven and cease to be. 
Slow from his visage he his visor raised, 
And on the dying one mute moment gazed, 
Then grimly said, " Look on me ! Accolon, 
I am that king ! " He, with an awful groan, 
Blade-battered as he was, beheld and knew ; 
Strained to his tottering knees and haggard drew 
Up full his armored height and hoarsely cried 
" The king ! " and at his mailed feet clashed and 
died. . 

Then came a world of anxious faces, pressed 

About King Arthur ; who, though sore distressed, 

Bespake that multitude : " While breath and power 

Remain, judge we these brothers : This harsh hour 

Hath yielded Damas all this rich estate ; — 

So it is his — allotted him by fate 

And might of arms. So let it be to him. 

For, stood our oath on knighthood not so slim 

But that it hath this strong conclusion. 

This much by us as errant knight is done. — 

Now our decree as King of Britain, hear : 

We do adjudge Earl Damas banned fore'er, 

Outlawed and exiled from all shores and isles 

Of farthest Britain in its many miles. 

One month be his, no more ! then will we come 

Even with an iron host to seal his doom : 

If he be not departed over seas. 

Hang naked from his battlements t' appease 

The wild hawks and of carrion-crows the craws. 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



Yea, we have said. . . . But all our favor 

draws 
Toward Sir Ontzlake, M^hom it likes the king 
To take into his knightly following. 
He shall attend us homeward. Ye have heard. — 
But I am very weaiy. Take my sword — 
Unharness me ; for, battle-worn, I tire ; 
And all my wounds are so much aching fire. 
So, help me hence. To-morrow we would fain 
To Glastonbury and with us the slain." 
So bare they then the wounded king away, 
The dead behind, as closed the autumn day. 



But when within that abbey he grew strong. 

The king, remembering the marauder wrong 

Which Damas had inflicted on the land, 

Commanded Lionell, with a staunch band. 

To stamp this weed out if still rooted there. 

He, riding thither to that robber lair. 

Led Arthur's hopefulest helms, when, thorn on 

thorn 
Reddened an hundred spears, one winter morn. 
Built up, a bulk of bastioned rock on rock. 
Vast battlements, that loomed above the shock 
Of fighting foam that climbed with tearing hands. 
Found cloudy-clustered turrets, in loud lands 
Set desolate — mournful over frozen flats, — 
Lone, hollow towers the haunt of owls and bats. 



A C COL ON OF GA UL. 



IV. ■\ 

'I 

NVIOUS and jealous of that high renown ,1 



E 



King Arthur had acquired for his crown, 
Morgane rejoiced. — Knowing, though mightier 
Than Accolon, without Excalibur, 
Arthur, a stingless hornet, in the joust 
Were less than dangerous. Confident, her trust 
Smiled certain of conclusion ; eloquent. 
Within her, whispered of success, that lent 
Her heart a lofty hope ; and at large eyes 
Piled up imperial dreams of power and prize. 
And in her carven chamber, oaken-dark, 
Traceried and arrased, o'er the barren park 
That dripped with autumn, — for November lay 
Swathed frostily in fog on every spray, — 
Sate at her tri-arched casement, one wild night, 
Ere yet came courier from that test of might ; 
Her lord in slumber and the castle dull 
With silence or of sad wind-music full : — 



" Another monarch rises — Accolon ! — 

Love, I.ove with state more ermined ; balmy son 

Of gods not men, and nobler hence to rule. 

Sweet Love almighty, terrible to school 

Harsh hearts to gentleness. — Then all this realm's 

Iron-husked flower of war, which overwhelms 

With rust and havoc, shall explode and bloom 

An asphodel of peace with joy's perfume. 

And then, O Launcelots and Tristrams, vowed 



A ceo L ON OF GA UL. 



To Gueneveres and Isouds, — now allowed 

No pleasures but what wary, stolen hours 

In golden places have their flaming flowers, — 

Ye shall have feasts of passion evermore ! 

Poor, out-thrust Love, now shivering at the door, 

No longer, sweet neglected ! art thrust off, 

Insulted and derided : nor the scoff 

Of bully Power, whose heart of insult flings 

Off for the roar of arms the appeal that clings 

And lifts a tearful, prayerful, pitiful face 

Up from his brutal feet : this shrine where grace 

Lays woman's life for suffering sacrifice — 

To him how little ! but of what pure price ! 

Her all, being all her all for love ! her soul, 

Life, honor, earth and firmamental whole 

Of God's glad universe : stars, moon and sun ; 

Creation, death ; life ended, life begun. 

And if by fleshly love all Heaven 's debarred, 

Its sinuous, revolving spheres instarred. 

Then Hell were Heaven with love to those who 

knew 
Love which God's Heaven encouraged while it grew. 

* ' But this lank Urience who is my lord ? — 

"Why should I worry ? for, hath he no sword ? 

No dangerous dagger I, hid softly here, 

Sharp as an adder's fang ? or for that ear 

No instant poison which insinuates, 

Tightens quick pulses while the breath abates?" . . » 

Thus had she then determined ; and the night 



A C COL ON OF GA UL. 



Sobbed on the towers, with no haggard, white 
And watery moonbeam on the streaming pane, 
But on the leads the soft, incessant rain, 
A lamentable wind that wailed among 
The turrets like a flying phantom throng. — 

So grew her face severe as skies that take 

Dark forces of some tragic storm and shake 

With murmurous wrath black hills, and stab with 

fire 
A pine the moaning forest mourns as sire ; 
So touched her countenance that dark intent. 
And to still eyes stern thoughts a passion sent 
As midnight waters, luminous with deep 
Suggestive worlds, glass austere stars in sleep, 
Vague, ghostly gray locked in their hollow gloom. 
Then as if some vast wind had swept the room, 
Silent, intense, had raised her from her seat ; 
Of dim, great arms had made her a retreat. 
Secret as thought to move in ; like a ghost, 
Noiseless as death and subtle as the frost. 
Poised like a light and borne as carefully. 
She trod the gusty hall where shadowy 
The hangings rolled a dim Pendragon war. 
And there the mail of Urience lay. A star, 
Glimmering above, a dying cresset dropped 
From the stone vault and flared. And here she 

stopped 
And took the sword bright-burnished by his page 
And ruddy as a flame with restless rage ; 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



For she had thought that, when they found him 

dead, 
His sword laid by him on the bloody bed 
Would be convictive that his own hand had 
Done him this violence while fever-mad. 
The sword she took ; and to the chamber, where 
Her husband slept, she glided ; like an air 
Twined in seductive sendal ; or a fit 
Of faery song a wicked charm in it. 
An incantation from the lips of death. 
She paused beside his threshold ; for a breath 
Listened ; and, sure he slept, stole in and stood 
Dim by his couch. About her heart the blood 
Caught strangling, then throbbed thudding fever up 
To her broad eyes, like wine whirled in a cup. 

Then came rare Recollection, with a mouth 
Sweet as the honeyed sunbeams of the South 
Trickling through perplexed ripples of the leaves ; 
To whose faint form a veil of starshine cleaves 
Intricate gauze from memoried eyes to feet — 
Feet sandaled with the sifted snows and fleet 
To come and go and airy anxiously. 
She, trembling to her, like a flower a bee 
Nests in and makes an audible mouth of musk. 
Dripping a downy language in the dusk, 
Laid lips to ears and luted memories of 
Now hated Urience : — Her maiden love. 
That left Caerlleon willingly for Gore 
One dazzling day of autumn. How a boar. 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



Wild as the wonder of the blazing wood, 
Raged at her from a cavernous solitude, 
That, crimson-creepered, yawned the bristling 

curse 
Murderous upon her. How her steed grew worse 
And, terrified, fled snorting down the dell 
Pursued with fear, and flung her from the selle, 
Unhurt, upon a bank of springy moss, 
That couched her swooning. In an utter loss 
Of mind and limbs she only knew 't was thus — 
As one who pants beneath an incubus : — 
The boar thrust towards her a tusked snout and 

fanged 
Of hideous bristles, and the whole wood clanged 
And buzzed and boomed an hundred sounds and 

lights 
Lawless about her brain, like leaves wild nights 
Of hurricane harvest shouting. Then she knew 
A fury thundered 'twixt them — and fleet flew 
Rich-rooted moss and sandy loam that held 
Dark-buried shadows of the wild, and swelled 
Continual echoes with the thud of strife, 
And breath of man and brute that warred for life ; 
And all the air, made mad with foam and forms, 
Spun froth and, 'twixt her, wrestled hair and arms, 
"While trampled caked the stricken leaves or, shred, 
Hummed whirling, and snapped brittled branches 

dead. 
And when she rose and leaned her throbbing head, 
With all its uncoifed rays of raven hair 



2o6 A CCOL ON OF GA UL . 

Disheveling shoulders pure and faultless fair, 
On one milk, marvelous arm of fluid grace, 
Beheld the brute thing throttled and the face 
Of angry Urience over, browed like might. 
One red swol'n arm, that pinned the hairy fright. 
Strong as a god's, iron at the gullet's brawn ; 
Dug in its midriff, the close knees updrawn 
Wedged deep the glutton sides that quaked and 

strove 
A shaggy bulk, whose sharp hoofs drove and drove. 
Thus man and brute strained bent ; when Urience 

slipped 
One arm, the horror's tearing tusks had ripped 
And ribboned redly, to the dagger's hilt, 
Which at his hip hung long a haft gold-gilt ; 
Its rapid splinter drew ; beamed twice and thrice 
High in the sun and, ghastly white as ice, 
Plunged — and the great boar stretched in sullen 

death 
Lay, in its harsh gorge bubbling blood and breath. 

And how he brought her water from a well, — 
A rustling freshness, — near them where it fell 
From a moss-mantled rock, caught in his casque, 
For her to drink ; then bathed her brow, a task 
That had accompanying tears of joy and vows 
Of love, sweet intercourse of eyes and brows, 
And many clinging kisses eloquent. 
And how, his wound dressed, she behind him bent 
And clasped him on the same steed, and they went 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



On through the gold wood toward the golden west, 
Till on one low hill's forest-covered crest 

Up in the gold his castle's battlements pressed. ' 

And then she felt she 'd loved him till had j 

come '■■ , ' 

Fame of the love of Isoud, wh^^ from home, ;i 

Tristram had brought across the Irish foam ; j 

And Guenevere's for Launcelot of the Lake : '; 
From these how her desire seemed to wake, ^^^ 

Longing for some great hero who would slake — ~ ; 

And such found Accolon. ^-. : 

\ 

And then she thought > 

How far she 'd fallen and how darkly fraught 
With consequence was this. Then what distress 
Were hers and his — her lover's, and success 
How doubly difficult if, Arthur slain. 
King Urience lived to assert his right to reign. 
So she stood pondering with the sword ; her lips 
Breathless and close, as her cold finger-tips 
About the weapon's hilt. And so she sighed, 
" Nay ! long, too long hast lived who shouldst have 

died 
Even in the womb abortive I who these years 
Hast leashed my life to care with stinging tears, 
A knot thus harshly severed ! — As thou art 
Into the elements naked ! " 

O'er his heart 
The long blade paused and — then descended hard. 



2o8 A CCOL ON OF GA I 'Z . 

Unfleshed, she laid it by her murdered lord ; 
And the dark blood spread broader through the sheet 
And dripped a horror at impassive feet, 
/ And blurred the polished oak. But lofty she 

Stood proud, relentle^o \ in her ecstasy 
A lovely devil ; a,.c/owned lust that cried 
On Accolon ; the rebel that defied 
Control 'Vail her senses ; clamorous as 
Steep storm that down a cavernous mountain pass 
Blasphemes an hundred echoes ; with like] power 
The inner wanton called its paramour ; 
/ Him whom, King Arthur had commanded, when 

/ Borne from the lists, she should receive again 

' As his blithe gift and welcome from the joust, 

For treacherous love and her more treacherous lust. 

And while she stood revolving if her deed's 
Secret were safe, behold ! a grind of steeds, 
Arms and loud voices of fierce men that cursed 
Coarse in the northern court. To her athirst 
For him her lover, war and power it spoke, 
Him victor and so king. And then awoke 
A yearning to behold him ; and she fled 
Like some wild specter down wide stairs, and red 
Burst on a glare of links and glittering mail, 
That shrunk her eyes and made her senses quail. 
To her a bulk of iron, bearded fierce, 
Down from a steaming steed into her ears, 
" This from the King, O Queen ! " laughed harsh 
and hoarse : 



A CCOLON OF GA UL. 



Two henchmen beckoned, who pitched sheer with 

force, 
Dull clanging at her feet, hacked, hewn, and red, 
Crusted with blood, a knight in armor — dead ; 
Her Accolon, flung with the mocking scoff 
" This from the King ! " — phantoms in fog rode off. 



And what remains? — From Camelot to Gore 

That ni^ht she weeping fled : thence to the shore, - 

As that romancer tells, — Avilion, 

Where she hath majesty gold-crowned and wan : 

In darkest cypress a frail, piteous face 

Queenly and lovely : 'round sad eyes the trace 

Of immemorial tears as for some crime : 

Eyes future- fixed, expectant of the time 

When the forgiving Arthur cometh and 

Shall have to rule all that lost golden land. 

That drifts vague amber in forgotten seas 

Of surgeless turquoise drowned in mysteries. — 

Morgana, Queen of the gray Nevermore, 

Who with crowned shadows out of Cornwall bore 

The wounded Arthur from that last fought fight 

Of Camlan in a black barge into night. 

She who came ,wailing with a stately band 

Of serge-stoled maidens from some far-off land 

Of autumn-glimmer ; when were sharply strewn 

The red leaves, and, broad o'er the hills, a moon 

Swung full of frost a lustrous globe of gleams, 

Faint on the mooning waves as shapes in dreams. 



ACCOLON OF GAUL. 



Epilogue. 

T^OR the mountains' hoarse greeting came hollow 
From stormy wind-chasms and caves ; 
And I heard their wild cataracts wallow 
White bulks in long spasms of waves ; 
And Merlin said, ^^ Lo ! you must follow ! 
And our path is o'er thousands of graves." 



Then I felt that the black earth was porous 
And rotten with dust and ivith bones ; 

And I knezv that the ground that now bore us 
Was cadaverous with death as liith stones ; 

And I saiv burning eyes, heard sonorous 
And dolorous gnash ings and groans. 

But the night of the tempest and thunder, 

The might of the terrible skies. 
And the fire of Hell, that, — coiled under 

The hollow Earth, — smoulders and sighs. 
And the laughter of stars and their wonder. 

Mingled and mixed in his eyes. 

And tve clomb — and the moon, old and sterile, 
Chmb with us o'er torrent and scar : 

And I yearned towards her oceans of beryl. 
Wan mountains and cities of spar : 

" ' Tis not well," then he said, ^'' you 're in peril 
Of falling and failing your star.^' 



A C COL ON OF GA UL. 



And we clonib — till we stood at the portal 
Of the uttermost point of the peak ; 

And he led with a step more than mortal 
Far upward some presence to seek ; 

And I felt that this love ivas immortal, 
This love, zvhich had ftiade me so weak. 

We had clomb till the limbo of spirits 
Of darkness and crime deep beloio 

Swung nebular ; nor could we hear its 
Lost wailing and clamor of woe, — 

For zue stood in a realm that inherits 
A vanquishing virgiji of snow. 



THE END. 



